David Johansen, frontman of the groundbreaking proto-punk band New York Dolls and later acclaimed for his Buster Poindexter persona, passed away at his residence in New York City, New York on February 28. He was 75 years old.
Johansen’s demise was confirmed by his daughter, Leah Hennessey. She stated that her father had “passed away peacefully at home, holding the hands of his wife, Mara Hennessey, and daughter Leah, in the sunlight surrounded by music and flowers. After a decade of severely compromised health, he died of natural causes.”
Earlier in February, the family had disclosed that Johansen had been fighting stage 4 cancer for almost a decade and was also suffering from a brain tumor.
Born in 1950 on Staten Island, Johansen harbored a passion for singing from a tender age. His father, an insurance salesman, was a former opera singer while his mother was a librarian. Instead of attending college, Johansen joined an experimental acting group and later became the leading vocalist of the Staten Island band Vagabond Missionaries in the late 1960s.
Johansen’s career took a significant turn when he became part of the New York Dolls in 1972. The band’s debut album, released in 1973, and its follow-up “Too Much Too Soon” in 1974, though initially not commercially successful, were later recognized as cornerstones of the punk movement. The debut album even made it to Rolling Stone’s list of greatest albums of all time.
As reported by Billboard in 2021, “There’s a slew of artists from the ’70s and beyond whose No. 1s would be unthinkable without the pioneering look, sound and attitude of these glammed-up NYC proto-punks.”
After the disbandment of the Dolls in the mid-1970s, Johansen launched a successful solo career, releasing four albums between 1978 and 1984. In 1987, he introduced his alter ego Buster Poindexter, a lounge singer character that brought him mainstream success, particularly with the hit “Hot Hot Hot.”
Johansen, in a 1988 interview with PEOPLE, revealed the genesis of his character’s name. He explained that he was called “Buster” on the streets, but when seen with books, people would address him as “Poindexter,” a blend of intellectualism and punk attitude.
The transformation into Buster Poindexter proved successful, with Rolling Stone branding his debut album under this persona as “the party album of the year,” which hit No. 40 on the Billboard 200. His performances were marked by narrative interludes between songs, where he often narrated tales from his past in the rock and roll industry.
Despite the immense popularity of “Hot Hot Hot,” Johansen had complex feelings towards it. In 2015, he referred to it as “the bane of my existence” in an interview with PEOPLE, highlighting the predicament artists face when they achieve a hit song and the pressure to keep performing it, regardless of their personal preference.
Johansen also made a mark as an actor, featuring in films like “Scrooged” (1988) and “Married to the Mob” (1988), and television shows such as “The Adventures of Pete & Pete” and “Oz.”
In 2004, Johansen reunited with the surviving members of the New York Dolls. What started as a one-off performance turned into an eight-year long revival. In his words to PEOPLE, “We were gonna do one show, and then we wound up playing for eight years and went around the world like three times.”
Johansen reprised his Buster Poindexter persona for shows at New York’s iconic Café Carlyle in 2015.
In 2023, Johansen’s career was showcased in a documentary titled “Personality Crisis: One Night Only,” directed by Martin Scorsese and David Tedeschi. The film centered around his cabaret performances and featured interviews with his daughter Leah.
Scorsese, who had known Johansen for decades, was captivated by the vibrancy of his performances. He remembered Johansen’s shows as poignant and beautiful.
Leah Hennessey, in her last update about her father before his death, shared with PEOPLE that “He’s very, very sick, but he’s reading all the messages, and he’s getting in touch with people he hasn’t talked to in many years. He’s totally with us — mentally, emotionally, [but] he’s physically incapacitated.”
Johansen was married three times: first to actress Cyrinda Foxe from 1977 to 1978, then to photographer Kate Simon from 1983 to 2011, and lastly to artist Mara Hennessey in 2013. Leah Hennessey spoke of her parents’ relationship, describing their love as mythological – in love every moment of the day.
Johansen is survived by his wife, Mara, and his daughter, Leah.