David Johansen, flamboyant New York Dolls frontman, dies at 75

"In the history books, it would always say, ‘They were trashy. They were flashy. They were drug addicts. They were drag queens,'" Johansen said. "I realized that, you know, it really is art.”

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David Johansen, the frontman and last surviving member of the flamboyantly gritty proto-punk band New York Dolls has died. He was 75.

Johnasen died at his home in Staten Island, N.Y., as confirmed by his daughter Leah Hennessy to multiple outlets. Johansen had suffered from Stage 4 cancer and a broken back in recent years, according to Johansen’s fundraiser on Sweet Relief, a music charity.

In the New York Dolls, Johansen defined an era when ‘70s glam rock was getting leaner and meaner as the seeds of punk rock began to sow. With a transgressive gender-bending style — lipstick and eyeliner, skin-tight leather and pinup-worthy hair — the Dolls were under-heralded in an era still dominated by arena-rock giants.

But amid a wave of acts like MC5, T. Rex and Suicide, they recast rock ‘n’ roll Americana and British Invasion panache for a new era of decadent, insistent and streetwise music that would become punk.

“Brimming with a sloppy insouciance, their debut album often is cited as one of the building blocks of the late ‘70s punk movement,” The Times wrote in an early review. “There’s no denying David Johansen’s bratty vocalizing… But unlike the MC5 — fellow revolutionaries who more directly presaged the hard-core aspects of the coming punk rebellion — the Dolls had clearer roots in the rock mainstream.”

The New York Dolls perform at the Waldorf Halloween Ball at Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City on Oct. 31, 1973. At left is lead singer David Johansen, with guitarist Sylvain Sylvain.

(Richard Drew / Associated Press)

Johansen, a Staten Island native, joined the Dolls in 1971, playing an auspicious early gig at a local homeless shelter. Their instantly arresting look pulled from David Bowie’s androgyny and the drag-culture underground in New York. Johansen had the sharp, pouty features of Mick Jagger, but the sneer and savvy of his hometown.

“All the record companies have been to see us,” Johansen told Rolling Stone in 1972. “They think we’re too outrageous. They know we’re real and we’ll stop at nothing, and it scares the s— outta them.”

The group’s self-titled 1973 debut LP — featuring the members in full regalia on the cover — had the bones of a future rock classic. Produced by Todd Rundgren, the LP sported tracks like “Personality Crisis,” “Bad Girl” and “Trash” that packed tons of girl-group melody and grimy, loose-limbed riffing (courtesy of guitarist Johnny Thunders) into a few short minutes. “Lonely Planet Boy,” a more somber acoustic ballad, and bluesy “Looking For A Kiss” showed a genuine range and close study of rock history.

The album was acclaimed in the era’s small circle of tastemakers — they were beloved at the Mercer Arts Center, a downtown club frequented by Andy Warhol. The Smiths’ frontman Morrissey was entranced by a BBC broadcast of the Dolls’ performing “Jet Boy,” and became president of their U.K. fan club. But the LP sold poorly, peaking at No. 116 on the Billboard charts. Their followup, 1974’s “Too Much Too Soon,” didn’t make much commercial impact either.

Addiction issues sidelined much of the band, and despite a late-career management shift to the Sex Pistols’ svengali Malcolm McLaren, the Dolls broke up in 1976.

Johansen reemerged as a solo act indebted to the Dolls’ catalog, often playing with former bandmate Sylvain Sylvain. Yet he had an unexpected pop resurgence in the ‘80s after re-inventing himself as Buster Poindexter, a louche lounge-lizard persona that scored an unlikely Hot 100 hit and MTV fixture with a cover of the calypso staple “Hot Hot Hot” (even if, as he later claimed, the song was “the bane of my existence”).

The novelty hit also attracted attention from Hollywood. Johansen made his TV debut in a 1985 episode of “Miami Vice,” and won roles as the Ghost of Christmas Past in the beloved Bill Murray 1988 holiday staple “Scrooged” and as a priest in “Married to the Mob.” That kicked off a busy career as a character actor in the ‘80s and ‘90s, in films including “Let it Ride” and “Mr. Nanny.”

Still of Bill Murray and David Johansen in “Scrooged” 1988.

(Paramount Pictures)

A Dolls reunion seemed unlikely — Thunders and drummer Jerry Nolan each died in 1991. But in 2004, the group’s three surviving members reunited for a Morrissey-curated edition of the Meltdown festival in London.

“[Morrissey] called me, and he said, ‘I understand you’re a pretty big Maria Callas fan,’” Johansen said in the 2022 documentary “Personality Crisis: One Night Only.” “He said, ‘Well, you know that film she made where she did a fantastic concert at the Royal Festival Hall?.. How would you like to play the Royal Festival Hall?… All you have to do is get the Dolls back together.’”

“I combed every opium den in Chinatown, and I pulled that band together,” Johansen said. “We were fantastic.”

Although bassist Arthur “Killer” Kane died weeks later that year, Johansen and Sylvain continued on with a new Dolls lineup and released three more albums, 2006’s “One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This,” 2009’s “Cause I Sez So,” and 2011’s “Dancing Backward in High Heels.”

To support the last record, the Dolls opened for Mötley Crüe and Poison — ‘80s stadium acts with deep debts, the Dolls’ fashion sense and hooky hard rock — on a massive tour, but did not return to the road or studio afterward.

In 2020, director Martin Scorsese — a ‘70s New York peer and Dolls devotee — teamed with David Tedeschi to film a Johansen solo set at New York’s Café Carlyle. They used it as the backbone of the 2022 documentary “Personality Crisis: One Night Only,” tracing Johansen’s life and immeasurable impact on an era of rock.

“Over the years, in the history books…[it] would always say, ‘They were trashy. They were flashy. They were drug addicts. They were drag queens,’” Johansen told Terry Gross in 2004. “That whole kind of trashy blah, blah, blah thing over the years kind of settled in my mind as, oh, yeah, that’s what it was, you know? And then by going back to it and deconstructing it, and then putting it back together again, I realized that, you know, it really is art.”

Johansen’s survivors include wife Mara Hennessey and daughter Leah Hennessey.

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