Rusty Warren, who turned her Phoenix nightclub act, bawdy by 1960s standards, into a string of million-selling record albums, has died. She was 91.

Warren was a pioneer among female comics, being among the first to discuss what went on behind closed doors between couples live on a stage.

Warren’s success came despite her act being ribald enough to keep her off television and her records never receiving radio airplay. Or possibly her success sprung from exactly those reasons.

The names of Warren’s most famous comedy records – “Knockers Up,” “Sin-Sational,” and “Bottoms Up” – suggest the style of her comedy.

“I only talk about things you do all the time,” she told the crowd on “Knockers Up.” Warren lamented to the crowd that men were afraid of approaching her for fear they’d be rejected.

“I never say no,” she said. “The only time I’ll say no is when they ask me if I’ve had enough.”

Warren began her career singing and playing piano at cocktail lounges. But, between songs, she would engage in patter with the crowd. Over time, the patter became what audiences packed into nightclubs to hear.

“I was talking about women who had sex and liked it,” Warren told the Republic in a 1990 interview. “But at that time, women weren’t supposed to like it. If you did, you were a whore.”

Born Ilene Goldman, she attended the New England Conservatory of Music. She described her abilities as a pianist, in a Republic interview, as “good but not brilliant.”

She played cocktail lounges in the Boston area. “Late at night, there’d be nobody in these places,” she said in a 1982 interview. “To cut the boredom, I got some repartee going with the regulars.”

That patter earned her an extra $25 a week at the clubs, she said. It also changed her career. She said it took her about a decade to transform herself into the Rusty Warren persona.

In 1955, Warren began an engagement at The Pomp Room at 16th Street and Camelback Road in Phoenix. Her first record “Songs for Sinners,” recorded at that nightclub, was released in November 1958.

It was her first million unit selling release on the Jubilee record label.

Her follow-up, “Knockers Up!,” released in 1960, sold more than 1.5 million copies within two years.

That record’s cover described it as “the hilarious comedy album that has Mr. & Mrs. America rolling the floor – from coast to coast.”

The second side of the record had Warren’s signature song, during which she would call for all the women in the crowd to parade around the nightclub floor with their shoulders back, aiming to accentuate a part of their body crudely described in the song’s title.

With no support from radio or television, Warren gained a following with her live performances at lounges around the country. More gold records followed.

Her records were among the so-called “party” records released at the time. An evening’s entertainment at a gathering at a house would involve playing the album on the console turntable in the living room.

A 1966 engagement at the Aladdin Hotel with Jackie Mason was held over for 14 weeks of sold-out shows. Lines for tickets stretched for two blocks, her publicist told the Republic at the time.

Liz Rizzo, who wrote a biography of Warren, said Warren’s comedy came just a few years before the country was ready to hear similar, but tamer, jokes about married life from Phyllis Diller and Joan Rivers.

“She paved the way so other women comedians could be up there and be mainstream,” Rizzo said.

Rizzo said that when she attended the opening of the National Comedy Museum in Jamestown, N.Y., where artifacts of Warren’s career are housed, she heard platitudes about Warren from several other VIP guests, including Dan Ackroyd and Amy Schumer.

Warren died of natural causes in her sleep, Rizzo said. Warren moved from Paradise Valley to Hawaii, before settling in Orange County, California.

Warren, on “Knockers Up!,” said that she often heard women in the crowds whispering to each other that Warren was a “dirty broad.”

“They talk about me, they whisper about me,” she said, “and then they go right home and try it all out.”

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