Carol Fyfe, a member of the gay community who performed on television and in clubs during the 1980s, was found dead in her San Francisco apartment November 25. She was 58.
The San Francisco Medical Examiner's office said that a cause of death has not been determined, pending an investigation.
Ms. Fyfe performed under the name "Dr. Farkle," recalled her friend Brette McCabe.
"She was a well-known television personality in the 1980s, giving the start to Doris Fish, among others," McCabe said. "She was a great beauty who, along with her friend Jane Dornacker, was politically astute."
Dornacker was a rock musician, actress, and a stand-up comic in San Francisco. According to her entry on Wikipedia, she later became a traffic reporter for a New York City radio station and died in a helicopter crash in 1986.
McCabe noted that Ms. Fyfe was at the famous lesbian bar Maud's the night it was raided by police after the Dan White riots.
Her independent movies aired on the Playboy channel, McCabe added.
Clothier Wilkes Bashford knew Ms. Fyfe, whom he called "a San Francisco original."
"One of the interesting things about Carol was that she represented an era in San Francisco where we had a lot of unusual characters," Bashford said. "She was very much part of the scene in San Francisco and she, in particular, was always up and positive and always had a good time."
In recent years, Ms. Fyfe "fell into obscurity," McCabe said. "She was a gallant woman and an old friend."
An informal memorial was held last weekend.