Martin Scorsese Remembers David Johansen: 'What a Remarkable Artist. What an Amazing Man'

Martin Scorsese has paid tribute to David Johansen, the beloved subject of the filmmaker's documentary 'Personality Crisis: One Night Only.'

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Martin Scorsese has paid tribute to David Johansen, who died on Feb. 28 at age 75. The filmmaker helmed the Johansen doc Personality Crisis: One Night Only, which featured interviews with the New York Dolls frontman and punk rock pioneer.

“With David Johansen, it started with the music, of course. Actually, with a New York Dolls song, ‘Personality Crisis.’ I heard that song, I can’t remember when or where, and it stayed with me. I listened to it obsessively,” Scorsese said in a statement shared with Rolling Stone. “The sound was rough, the playing was raw, the voice was wildly theatrical and immediate. And the energy was New York, 100 percent pure and uncut, right off the streets.

“After the Dolls broke up, I kept watching and listening to David. He never stopped growing as a songwriter and a singer, always exploring, always staking out new paths,” he continued. “There was the Buster Poindexter alter ego.”

In the 2023 film named after the New York Dolls’ song “Personality Crisis,” Scorsese explored the many facets of Johansen’s art, including his persona Buster Poindexter, which Johansen didn’t expect to take off. He created the act as one not intended to tour, after spending a ton of time on the road with his post New York Dolls band, David Johansen Group. “With Buster, I can do anything I want,” he said in the film. “People aren’t expecting something else. They come because it’s unexpected what I’m gonna do. They kind of trust that it’s gonna be good, and it’s always good.”

Scorsese also noted Johansen’s weekly radio show, Mansion of Fun, which the director said he listened to “obsessively.” “That was when I understood just how wide and deep David’s knowledge of music history was—all of music history, from Debussy to the Cadillacs to Loretta Lynn to the Incredible String Band to Gregorian chants to David’s beloved Maria Callas, all of it mysteriously connected.”

It was Johansen’s love of opera singer Maria Callas that reunited the New York Dolls in 2004 by way of Morrissey. In the documentary, he tells the story in-between songs at a performance at Café Carlyle. “[Morrissey] called me, and he said, ‘I understand you’re a pretty big Maria Callas fan.’” Johansen explained in the doc. “And I said, ‘Yes, I happen to be known for that in certain circles.’ He said, ‘Well, you know that film she made where she did a fantastic concert at the Royal Festival Hall?’ I said, ‘Yes, by heart.’ He said, ‘How would you like to play the Royal Festival Hall?… All you have to do is get the Dolls back together.’ And I thought, ‘Royal Festival Hall, Maria Callas…’ I combed every opium den in Chinatown, and I pulled that band together. We were fantastic.”

Scorsese said that even as Johansen grew “fragile” (he had been diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer and a brain tumor, and in November 2024 he had broken his back in two places following a fall), he would still show up for screening and gatherings along with Mara and Leah Hennessey, Johansen’s wife and stepdaughter.

“He would sit quietly, preserve his energy, but he was always fully there, right up to the end,” Scorsese said. “What a remarkable artist. What an amazing man. I was so lucky to have known him. I just wish there had been more time.”

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