Donna Powers Looks Back On Her Days As The 'Girl In The Fishbowl'

Did you know a mermaid lives in the Alhambra Valley?

Well, of course that’s not true. Actually, she’s a former mermaid.

Donna Powers was the ‘girl in the fishbowl,’ also known as Dolphina, at Bimbo’s 365 Club in San Francisco for 25 years, beginning in 1969. For those who don’t know, the club’s entrance features a fishbowl with goldfish and, seemingly, a six-inch nude woman swimming in it. The effect is achieved through the use of mirrors and projectors – the woman is actually alone on a couch in the basement of the club, behind two locked doors.

It’s not really as X-rated as it sounds.

“It sounds pretty racy, but there was no public contact whatsoever,” Powers said this week. “It’s actually pretty cute. People are always trying to figure out where the girl is.”

Powers was recently featured in a New York Times/Bay Citizen news story about the girl in the fishbowl, since she has held the title for the longest time. She retired from the position on Dec. 31, 1994.

Powers grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area during the 1960s, a time when alternative lifestyles were the norm, and revolution was seemingly everywhere. She got the Bimbo’s job after her roommate at the time was growing weary of being Dolphina seven nights a week, and gave her a few shifts. Eventually, the roommate moved away and Powers took over full time.

“I had a boring, awful job before that at Bank of America,” she said.

The nightclub scene in San Francisco was already on the wane when Powers took the job – the Fillmore and Winterland were the popular nightspots in the 1960s and early 70s, and discos took over in the late 70s and early 80s. But Bimbo’s remained a place where people could take their date and have a good time.

In 1991, Powers decided to run for Richmond City Council. She won, but soon faced an attempted coup.

“Some of the other council people decided they wanted to get rid of me, to load up the council with their own votes,” she said. “So they had ministers come out and denounce me. They said I was a bad influence on girls.”

But the strategy backfired. Powers received a lot of publicity, kept her council seat and even won a second term. She went on to help establish the Rosie the Riveter Park in Richmond, and helped reign in city spending.

She also ran into some opposition from former Supervisor Sunne McPeak when her husband Tom was on the Board of Supervisors.

“Sunne and a group of women decided that they felt Tom should make me stay out of the fishbowl,” she said. “Tom just rolled his eyes and said ‘oh, I’m not going to do that.’ I was quite offended, because I had taken three semesters of auto shop at the junior college so I could fix my VW bus. I’ve always been self-sufficient. I don’t need a group of women’s libbers telling me what to do.”

Today, she no longer “swims” in the fish bowl, and is amused that the whole thing has come up again. She and Tom spend their time on their Alhambra Valley ranch, growing olives and grapes. But her memories of her Dolphina days are still bright.

“When I first started working there, I met Howard Keel and Katherine Grayson. I met Louis Prima – his band was trying to be cool, and they were playing ‘Light My Fire.’ I never got a watch when I retired. I never got a party.”