AncientFaces Your browser does not support JavaScript!
Please enable JavaScript to view the entire contents of this page.

David Johansen 1949 - 2025

David Johansen was born in 1949, and died at age 75 years old on February 28, 2025.

David Johansen

Buster Poindexter

1949

February 28, 2025

Male

Looking for another David Johansen?

David Johansen David Johansen (1949 - 2025)

ADVERTISEMENT BY ANCESTRY.COM

This page exists for YOU
and everyone who remembers David.

Share what you know,
even ask what you wish you knew.

Invite others to do the same,
but don't worry if you can't...

Someone, somewhere will find this page,
and we'll notify you when they do.

David Johansen's History: 1949 - 2025

Uncover new discoveries and connections today by sharing about people & moments from yesterday.

- Discover how AncientFaces works.

1949

Birthday

1949

Birthdate

Unknown

Birthplace

ADVERTISEMENT BY
Professional Career

ED: March 1, 2025 at 12:37 PM EST DAVID JOHANSEN DIES NEW YORK (AP) — David Johansen, the wiry, gravelly-voiced singer and last surviving member of the glam and protopunk band the New York Dolls, who later performed as his campy, pompadoured alter ego, Buster Poindexter, has died. He was 75. Johansen died Friday at his home in New York City, according to Rolling Stone, citing a family spokesperson. It was revealed in early 2025 that he had stage 4 cancer and a brain tumor. The New York Dolls were forerunners of punk, and the band’s style — teased hair, women’s clothes, and lots of makeup — inspired the glam movement that took up residence in heavy metal a decade later in bands like Faster Pussycat and Mötley Crüe. “When you’re an artist, the main thing you want to do is inspire people, so if you succeed in doing that, it’s pretty gratifying,” Johansen told The Knoxville News-Sentinel in 2011. Rolling Stone once called the Dolls “the mutant children of the hydrogen age” and Vogue called them the “darlings of downtown style, tarted-up toughs in boas and heels.” “The New York Dolls were more than musicians; they were a phenomenon. They drew on old rock ‘n’ roll, big-city blues, show tunes, the Rolling Stones and girl groups, and that was just for starters,” Bill Bentley wrote in “Smithsonian Rock and Roll: Live and Unseen.” The band never found commercial success and was torn by internal strife and drug addictions, breaking up after two albums by the middle of the decade. In 2004, former Smiths frontman and Dolls admirer Morrissey convinced Johansen and other surviving members to regroup for the Meltdown Festival in England, leading to three more studio albums. In the ’80s, Johansen assumed the persona of Buster Poindexter, a pompadour-styled lounge lizard who had a hit with the kitschy party single “Hot, Hot, Hot” in 1987. He also appeared in such movies as “Candy Mountain,” “Let It Ride,” “Married to the Mob” and had a memorable turn as the Ghost of Christmas Past in the Bill Murray-led hit “Scrooged.” In 2023, Johansen was the subject of Martin Scorsese and David Tedeschi’s documentary “Personality Crisis: One Night Only,” which mixed footage of his two-night stand at the Café Carlyle in January 2020 with intimate interviews and flashbacks through his wildly varied career. David Roger Johansen was born Jan. 9, 1950 to a large, working class Catholic family on Staten Island, his father an insurance salesman and his mother a librarian. He filled notebooks with poems and lyrics as a young man and liked a lot of different music — R&B, Cuban, Janis Joplin and Otis Redding. He began his career in the late ’60s as the lead singer of the local Station Island band Vagabond Missionaries, before joining the New York Dolls as singer/songwriter. The Dolls — the final original lineup included guitarists Sylvain Sylvain and Johnny Thunders, bassist Arthur Kane and drummer Jerry Nolan — rubbed shoulders with Lou Reed and Andy Warhol in the Lower East Side of Manhattan the early ’70s. They took their name from a toy hospital in Manhattan and were expected to take over the throne vacated by the Velvet Underground. But neither of their first two albums — 1973’s “New York Dolls,” produced by Todd Rundgren, nor “Too Much Too Soon” a year later produced by Shadow Morton — charted. Rock group “The New York Dolls” perform at the Waldorf Halloween Ball, Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, NYC, Oct. 31, 1973. At right is lead singer David Johansen, with guitarist Sylvain Sylvain. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File) “They’re definitely a band to keep both eyes and ears on,” read the review of their debut album in Rolling Stone, complementary of their “strange combination of high pop-star drag and ruthless street arrogance.” Their songs included “Personality Crisis” (“You got it while it was hot / But now frustration and heartache is what you got”), “Looking for a Kiss” (I need a fix and a kiss”) and a “Frankenstein” (Is it a crime / For you to fall in love with Frankenstein?”) Their glammed look was meant to embrace fans with a nonjudgmental, noncategorical space. “I just wanted to be very welcoming,” Johansen said in the documentary, “’cause the way this society is, it was set up very strict — straight, gay, vegetarian, whatever… I just kind of wanted to kind of like bring those walls down, have a party kind of thing.” Rolling Stone, reviewing their second album, called them “the best hard-rock band in America right now” and called Johansen a “talented showman, with an amazing ability to bring characters to life as a lyricist.” FILE - The New York Dolls are photographed in New York, July 25, 2006. From left are David Johansen, Sami Yaffa, Steve Conte, Sylvain Sylvain, Brian Delaney, rear, and Brian Koonin. (AP Photo/Jim Cooper, File) The New York Dolls are photographed in New York, July 25, 2006. From left are David Johansen, Sami Yaffa, Steve Conte, Sylvain Sylvain, Brian Delaney, rear, and Brian Koonin. (AP Photo/Jim Cooper, File) Decades later, though, the Dolls’ influence would be cherished. Rolling Stone would list their self-titled debut album at No. 301 of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, writing “it’s hard to imagine the Ramones or the Replacements or a thousand other trash-junky bands without them.” Blondie’s Chris Stein in the Nolan biography “Stranded in the Jungle” wrote that the Dolls were “opening a door for the rest of us to walk through.” Tommy Lee of Mötley Crüe called them early inspirations. “Johansen is one of those singers, to be a little paradoxical, who is technically better and more versatile than he sounds,” said the Los Angeles Times in 2023. “His voice has always been a bit of a foghorn — higher or lower according to age, habits and the song at hand — but it has a rare emotional urgency.” The Dolls, representing rock at it’s most debauched, were divisive. In 1973, they won the Creem magazine poll categories as the year’s best and worst new group. They were nominated several times for The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame but never got in. Influential American glam rock band New York Dolls in their dressing room on October 30, 1972. Standing, left to right: Jerry Nolan, Johnny Thunders, Killer Kane and Sylvain Sylvain. Seated: singer David Johannsen. P. Felix/Getty Images Influential American glam rock band New York Dolls in their dressing room on October 30, 1972. Standing, left to right: Jerry Nolan, Johnny Thunders, Killer Kane and Sylvain Sylvain. Seated: singer David Johannsen. (Photo by P. Felix/Getty Images) “Dirty angels with painted faces, the Dolls opened the box usually reserved for Pandora and unleashed the infant furies that would grow to become Punk,” wrote Nina Antonia in the book “Too Much, Too Soon.” “As if this legacy wasn’t enough for one band, they also trashed sexual boundaries, savaged glitter and set new standards for rock ‘n’ roll excess,” she said. By the end of their first run, the Dolls were being managed by legendary promoter Malcolm McLaren, who would later introduce the Sex Pistols to the Dolls’ music. Culture critic Greil Marcus in “Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century” wrote that the Dolls played him some of their music and he couldn’t believe how bad they were. “The fact that they were so bad suddenly hit me with such force that I began to realize, ’’I’m laughing, I’m talking to these guys, I’m looking at them, and I’m laughing with them; and I was suddenly impressed by the fact that I was no longer concerned with whether you could play well,” McLaren said. “The Dolls really impressed upon me that there was something else. There was something wonderful. I thought how brilliant they were to be this bad.” Buster Poindexter performs onstage at The Daily Front Row's celebration of the 10th Anniversary of CBS Watch! Magazine at the Gramercy Terrace at The Gramercy Park Hotel on February 9, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Mike Coppola/Getty Images) Buster Poindexter performs onstage at The Daily Front Row’s celebration of the 10th Anniversary of CBS Watch! Magazine at the Gramercy Terrace at The Gramercy Park Hotel on February 9, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Mike Coppola/Getty Images) After the first demise of the Dolls, Johansen started his own group, the David Johansen Group, before reinventing himself yet again in the 1980s as Buster Poindexter. Inspired by his passion for the blues and arcane American folk music, Johansen also formed the group The Harry Smiths and toured the world performing the songs of Howlin’ Wolf with Hubert Sumlin and Levon Helm. He also painted and hosted the weekly radio show “The Mansion of Fun” on Sirius XM. He’s survived by his wife, Mara Hennessey, and a stepdaughter, Leah Hennessey. Originally Published: March 1, 2025 at 11:41 AM EST
02/28

2025

Death

February 28, 2025

Death date

Unknown
Cause of death

Unknown
Death location

ADVERTISEMENT BY
Obituary

David Johansen, Who Fronted the New York Dolls and More, Dies at 75 In the 1970s, he and the transgressive Dolls were proto-punk pioneers. He later refashioned himself as the pompadoured lounge lizard Buster Poindexter. The singer David Johansen in 2004. He was prolific in multiple genres, but his 1970s heyday with the New York Dolls had the most cultural impact. By Gavin Edwards March 1, 2025 Updated 3:32 p.m. ET David Johansen, the singer and songwriter who was at the vanguard of glam rock and punk as the frontman of the New York Dolls, died yesterday at his home on Staten Island. He was 75. His death was confirmed by his stepdaughter, Leah Hennessey. Mr. Johansen revealed last month that he was suffering from Stage 4 cancer, a brain tumor and a broken back. He announced a fund-raising campaign through the Sweet Relief Musicians Fund to assist with his medical bills, saying, “I’ve never been one to ask for help, but this is an emergency.” Mr. Johansen was prolific in multiple genres, from blues to calypso, and achieved his greatest commercial success in the late 1980s and early ’90s with his pompadoured lounge-lizard alter ego, Buster Poindexter. But his 1970s heyday with the New York Dolls, a band of lipstick-smeared men in love with trashy riffs and tough women, had the most cultural impact, inspiring numerous punk, heavy metal, and alternative musicians. One of those musicians was the singer-songwriter Morrissey of the Smiths, who first witnessed the band as a 13-year-old living in Manchester, England. It was 1973, and the BBC was broadcasting a Dolls show. As the young Morrissey watched the Dolls flail through “Jet Boy,” he had what he called his “first real emotional experience,” according to Nina Antonia’s 1998 book, “The New York Dolls: Too Much Too Soon.” Morrissey soon became the president of the band’s British fan club. The New York Dolls were notorious for transgressive behavior, especially for cross-dressing. “Before going onstage, the Dolls pass around a Max Factor lipstick the way some bands pass around a joint,” Ed McCormack wrote in Rolling Stone in 1972. “We used to wear some really outrageous clothes,” Mr. Johansen said in the prologue to the 1987 music video for Buster Poindexter’s hit song “Hot Hot Hot.” “These heavy metal bands in L.A. don’t have the market cornered on wearing their mothers’ clothes.” Musical polish and professionalism weren’t the Dolls’ strong suit — bassist Arthur Kane sometimes played multiple songs without remembering to plug in. But they compensated with swagger, shock value and songwriting, performing indelibly fast and loud anthems about trash, outer-borough outcasts and falling in love with Frankenstein. “If I’m acting like a king,” Mr. Johansen sang, “well, that’s ’cause I’m a human being.” “David had a bit of the vaudevillian in him,” Lenny Kaye of the Patti Smith Group said in a 2023 interview for this obituary. “He was a carnival barker, and he wasn’t afraid to be the center of attention.” David Johansen: 15 Essential Songs March 1, 2025 David Roger Johansen was born on Jan. 9, 1950, on Staten Island, the third of six children. His mother, Helen (Cullen) Johansen, was a librarian; his father, Gunvold Johansen, was a life insurance salesman who had been an opera singer in Norway. Around 1964, Mr. Johansen left St. Peter’s Boys School. By his own account, he was expelled: “They just realized I was not the right person for them,” he told Will Hermes for his 2011 book, “Love Goes to Buildings on Fire: Five Years in New York That Changed Music Forever.” He finished his education at Port Richmond High School, graduating in 1967. Mr. Johansen in performance in 1978. After the demise of the Dolls, he released five solo albums between 1978 and 1984.Credit...Michael Putland/Getty Images After graduation, Mr. Johansen fell in with the New York City hipster scenes centered on Andy Warhol’s Factory, the nightclub Max’s Kansas City and Charles Ludlam’s Ridiculous Theater Company. The teenage Mr. Johansen did sound and lights for Mr. Ludlam, and appeared as an extra in some performances. “Charles taught me a lot about making a show and making a spectacle,” he told the online magazine Perfect Sound Forever in 2007. He employed those lessons at maximum volume when he joined the New York Dolls. “Musically, we wanted to bring back stuff with that Little Richard punch to it,” he told The New York Times in 2006. The highbrow Mercer Arts Center booked the Dolls for a Tuesday-night residency in its Oscar Wilde Room because it wanted to boost the bar receipts. “At first there were 10 or 20 people, and then 30, and then word spread,” Mr. Kaye said. “All of a sudden there was a scene.” The band, with a lineup of Mr. Johansen, Mr. Kane, the drummer Billy Murcia and the guitarists Johnny Thunders and Sylvain Sylvain, toured England in 1972. But tragedy struck when Mr. Murcia overdosed and drowned in a bathtub. (Drug addiction would hobble the band throughout its brief career.) When they returned to the United States, they recruited Jerry Nolan as a replacement and signed with Mercury Records. Mr. Johansen and Johnny Thunders of the New York Dolls in an early television performance in 1973.Credit...Richard Creamer, via Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images The band’s debut album, produced by Todd Rundgren and called simply “The New York Dolls,” was released in 1973. In Creem magazine’s year-end poll, its readers named the Dolls both the best new band and the worst band. The following year brought “Too Much Too Soon,” produced by Shadow Morton, famed for his work with the 1960s girl group the Shangri-Las. It sold poorly, as their first album had, and Mercury dropped the Dolls in 1975. Malcolm McLaren briefly managed the Dolls as they fell apart, dressing them in red patent leather, before returning to London and managing the Sex Pistols. The New York Dolls broke up in 1975 while on tour in Florida, although Mr. Johansen and Mr. Sylvain staggered on with replacement musicians for another year. Paul Nelson, the group’s A&R man, wrote a post-mortem in the Village Voice in 1975 about their difficulties outside New York City: “In the end, they rode on real rather than symbolic subway trains to specific rather than universal places, played for an audience of intellectuals or kids even farther out than they were; and when they eventually met the youth of the country, that youth seemed more confused than captivated by them.” Mr. Johansen released five solo albums between 1978 and 1984; professional bar-band rock with bohemian flourishes, the highlights included the declamatory style anthem “Funky but Chic.” A friendship with the actor Bill Murray led to Mr. Johansen’s appearance in the 1988 movie “Scrooged” as the taxicab-driving Ghost of Christmas Past. It was his most prominent role in an acting career that encompassed dozens of movies and TV shows. Mr. Johansen in 1986 as his pompadoured lounge-lizard alter ego, Buster Poindexter. It was in that guise that he achieved his greatest commercial success.Credit...Karjean Levine/Getty Images It was around this time that Mr. Johansen began cultivating the stage persona Buster Poindexter, a tuxedo-wearing crooner who specialized in jump blues and R&B party songs. Mr. Johansen made four albums as Buster Poindexter between 1987 and 1997, including the Latin-tinged “Buster’s Spanish Rocketship.” As Jon Pareles wrote in The Times in 1994, “What had seemed a sideline became his public musical face, often brilliant in the songs he personalized but sometimes verging on minstrelsy when he mimicked Black performers like Louis Armstrong.” His signature cover of “Hot Hot Hot,” originally recorded by the soca musician Arrow, became a party anthem and a minor hit, peaking at No. 45 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in 1987. He had always displayed good taste in covers, dating back to the Dolls’ versions of Bo Diddley’s “Pills” and Archie Bell & the Drells’ “(There’s Gonna Be a) Showdown.” After he retired the Buster persona, he started a new group, David Johansen and the Harry Smiths, which performed songs drawn from Harry Smith’s 1952 “Anthology of American Folk Music” and released albums in 2000 and 2002. In 2004, Morrissey induced the surviving New York Dolls — Mr. Johansen, Mr. Sylvain and Mr. Kane — to reunite for two shows in London. Feeling unwell a few weeks later, Mr. Kane checked into a hospital, was diagnosed with leukemia and died within hours. Nevertheless, Mr. Johansen and Mr. Sylvain made three more New York Dolls albums together between 2006 and 2011. Mr. Sylvain died in 2021, leaving Mr. Johansen as the last original Doll. In addition to Ms. Hennessey, his stepdaughter, Mr. Johansen is survived by his wife, Mara Hennessey, a visual artist he married in 2013, who produced and designed many of his live shows, and five siblings: Michael, Christopher, Elizabeth and Mary Ellen Johansen and Karen Holman. He was previously married to the actress and publicist Cyrinda Foxe from 1977 to 1978 (she left him for Steven Tyler, the lead singer of Aerosmith) and to the photographer Kate Simon from 1983 to 2011. In 2023, Mr. Johansen was the subject of “Personality Crisis: One Night Only,” a documentary centered on a Buster Poindexter show at the Café Carlyle in New York.Credit...Showtime Documentary Films; photograph by Roberta Bayley Mr. Johansen was the subject of “Personality Crisis: One Night Only,” a 2023 documentary directed by Martin Scorsese and David Tedeschi centered on a Buster Poindexter show at the Café Carlyle in New York. “Existence is maimed happiness,” he said in the film, paraphrasing the philosopher William James — but he wasn’t able to conceal the joyful spirit and relentless productivity that animated his decades-long career. There was an irrepressible outlook that drove the New York Dolls in their evanescent moment, which Mr. Johansen applied to the rest of his long life. “Our total attitude towards art, was, like, get up and do something — quit sitting there whining,” Mr. Johansen told The Times in 2006. “That’s what we stood for, that do-something spirit.” The Last of the Dolls Sylvain Sylvain of the Proto-Punk New York Dolls Dies at 69 Jan. 16, 2021 A correction was made on March 1, 2025: An earlier version of this obituary referred incorrectly to a fundraising campaign to help pay Mr. Johansen’s medical bills. It was through the Sweet Relief Musicians Fund, not GoFundMe. When we learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If you spot an error, please let us know at [contact link] more

ADVERTISEMENT BY
Looking for more information?
share

Memories

below

Join one other
who remembers David

Select options below to share special moments.

Introduction Ethnicity & Family History Nationality & Locations Early Life & Education Baptism Religious Beliefs Military Service Personal Life & Family Gravesite & Burial

Share what you remember.
Ask what you wish to know.
Connect to discover more.
Advertisement
Did you know?

David Johansen lived 1 year longer than the average family member when died at the age of 76.

ADVERTISEMENT BY
Looking for more information?
share

Memories

below