The Stripper King

This story originally was published by Seattle Weekly sibling Eastsideweek on July 10, 1996. It is unaltered from its original form.

It ended much like it began-with some girl calling the cops. The first time, 1943, Frank was 25 and the girl, 16. She told the officers Frank had sexually attacked her during a visit to his family home in Bellevue. Frank said the sex was consensual, the girl was just trying to get him to marry her. But hey, Franks a macho guy. Rather than marry, hed do the time, and did: two years for carnal knowledge.

More than half a century later, having achieved geriatric gangster status, amassing several million dollars from his nude- and topless-dancing operations, and with his wife of 36 years bailing out on him, Frank grabbed this other girl, 18, fondling and then offering her $500 to go to bed with him. Not a good move for an old con on parole. For the fifth time in 52 years, Frank went off to prison. Where he resides today.

Which is not to say that the story of Frank Colacurcio, 79, Seattles next-best thing to a criminal godfather, has necessarily reached its final chapter.

What is he, 100, 150 years old? asks a longtime Seattle detective. If he gets out of prison alive this time, Id be surprised. He pauses. But hell, hes Frank fuckin Colacurcio, the comeback kid.

Going off to the slammer has been nothing more than an inconvenience for Frank. He never hung around long, and his associates kept the nudie business humming, taking their cues from Frank long-distance. His son, Frank Jr., 34, himself an ex-con convicted of skimming bar profits and avoiding federal taxes, continues to operate the primary family enterprise, nude dancing clubs. As president of his dads company and combined interests, Talents West and Huns Entertainment of Seattle, Frank Jr. finds himself facing the same nagging problems as Frank Sr.: cops, moralists, probation officers, and zoning laws. Frank Jr. and the old mans associates operate a half-dozen strip joints in King and Pierce counties and most recently have opened, or tried to open, clubs in Kent and the Eastside-Papagayos Cantina in Overlake and Babes in Factoria. Factoria was the venue of the old mans onetime-flagship dance club, the Bavarian Gardens, a topless beer-and-pool pub tucked into a strip mall with a next-door massage parlor. It was the site of Franks first major criminal mistake-getting caught-leading to a federal prison term and spurring a Bellevue law forbidding nude dancing in or near residential areas. Dads legacy to son, thus, was that Babes dancers last year had to keep some of their clothes on. As a result, Babes, like the well-patrolled Papagayos, went you-know-what up.

Everyone calls Frank Francis Colacurcio Sr. just plain Frank. Frank Francis Jr. is called Frankie. Besides nude dancing and doing time, their common interests apparently include a longing for females. As Frankie put it a while back to a Seattle Times reporter, discussing his six-month tour of duty in the federal system, It didnt bug me that much except you dont have women, which is horrible.

Its been horrible for Frank, too: Women have not only kept him in the money, but also in the courts. Topless joints are cash operations and Frank learned quickly how to skim off the top, avoiding taxes. He didnt, however, figure out how to avoid getting caught at it or, whenever he got out of stir, how not to go back to the female commodity business. Frank didnt have a high regard for women; between the first assault in the 1940s and the last in the 1990s, there were myriad dancers, girlfriends, and prostitutes with Franks pawprints all over them, former employees say. He married back in 1961, but never lost his roving eye and touch. A paranoid voyeur, Frank liked to keep an eye on things around the clubs. He had peepholes everywhere, says one of Franks ex-bartenders. He spied on the girls, on the office help, watching people have sex. That was his deal, he didnt trust anyone.

Franks star began its notorious rise in the late 1950s, amid a series of hearings and newspaper reports pointing to him as the man behind illegal gambling, prostitution, and payoffs at clubs in downtown Seattle and around the state. But it wasnt until 1971 that he was first convicted of racketeering-conspiracy and importing illegal bingo cards into Washington-and served two years in federal prison. That one peed him off, says an old friend, because it was a setup deal; they lied to get him. Frank said they werent fighting fair.

Colacurcios trial was the centerpiece of local corruption scandals back then. A parade of police and officials were linked to an illegal gambling/payoff system in Seattle bars and bingo parlors. Despite city prohibitions, the corrupt practices were tolerated by cops who profited through kickbacks and payoffs (a First Avenue bar operator today says he still has this tendency, when spying a beat cop walking through his door, to put a paper sack full of cash on the bar as he did in the 1960s, and tell the officer, Lunch.) Frank was among those accused of heading up a shakedown operation in which hed extort money from other bar operators, then kick back part of it to the cops. In return, theyd protect Frank and other illegal operators by not busting them. At Franks trial in 1971, a nightclub owner testified he once paid Colacurcio $3,000 a month for police protection.