David Johansen Dies: New York Dolls Singer & ‘Scrooged’ Actor Was 75

Dan Clarendon March 1, 2025, 12:11 pm

New York Dolls lead singer David Johansen has died at age 75.

A representative confirmed the musician’s death in a statement to Rolling Stone, saying, “David Johansen died at home in NYC on Friday afternoon holding hands with his wife Mara Hennessey and daughter Leah, surrounded [by] music, flowers, and love. He was 75 years old and died of natural causes after nearly a decade of illness.”

In a fundraising message on February 14, Leah said that her father had been undergoing intensive treatment for stage 4 cancer for most of the last decade and that he was diagnosed with a brain tumor five years ago. Johansen had broken his back in two places in a November 2024 fall and was bedridden and incapacitated, Leah added.

“We’ve been living with my illness for a long time, still having fun, seeing friends and family, carrying on, but this tumble the day after Thanksgiving really brought us to a whole new level of debilitation,” Johansen said in a statement at the time, per Rolling Stone. “This is the worst pain I’ve ever experienced in my entire life. I’ve never been one to ask for help, but this is an emergency. Thank you.”

Johansen is best known as the lead singer of the punk group New York Dolls, of which he was the last surviving member. He also had a solo music career under his own name and the pseudonym Buster Poindexter. As Poindexter, he released a popular cover of the calypso song “Hot Hot Hot.”

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On screen, Johansen had an acting career stretching more than three decades, which included a memorable turn as the Ghost of Christmas Past in the 1988 holiday film Scrooged. He reunited with Scrooged star Bill Murray in 2015’s A Very Murray Christmas.

In other appearances, Johansen took roles in the films Married to the Mob, Let It Ride, and Mr. Nanny and guest-starred on the TV shows Miami Vice, Cupid, Oz, and Deadline. He was also the subject of Martin Scorsese and David Tedeschi’s 2022 documentary Personality Crisis: One Night Only.