David Johansen: the glam rocker who was a godfather of punk

Johansen put a New York City spin on the burgeoning punk rock scene.

(Image credit: Everett)

Sporting platform boots, red patent leather, and lipstick, David Johansen was a flashy pioneer of proto-punk. As frontman for the New York Dolls—a short-lived, off-the-walls, gender-bending band of the early 1970s—Johansen put a New York City spin on the burgeoning punk rock scene. After the band broke up in 1976, Johansen underwent a total transformation, morphing into Buster Poindexter: a pompadoured lounge singer of winking suavity. The alter ego brought Johansen his first real commercial success, when his cover of the calypso song “Hot Hot Hot” hit No. 11. His most impactful work, though, was with the Dolls, a band that influenced the Sex Pistols, the Ramones, and even the Smiths—as a teen, Morrissey was head of the Dolls’ British fan club. “Our total attitude towards art was, like, get up and do something,” Johansen said in 2006. “Quit sitting there whining.”

Johansen was born on Staten Island to an Irish librarian mother and a Norwegian opera singer turned insurance salesman father. After high school, he “fell in with the New York City hipster scenes,” said The New York Times, and learned stagecraft working for an indie theater company. In 1971, at 21, he joined the newly formed Dolls. What they lacked in musical polish they made up for in “swagger, shock value, and song-writing.” Their first gig was at a homeless shelter; a year later, they were touring England as Rod Stewart’s opening act. But “drug addiction hobbled the band,” and it dissolved after releasing two albums. In the 1980s, Johansen as Poindexter “was known as a playful throwback to the Rat Pack era,” said The Washington Post, as he led conga lines and tossed out zingy one-liners.

“His larger-than-life onstage persona soon drew the attention of Hollywood,” said Rolling Stone. Small parts on shows like Miami Vice and in films, led to a memorable role as the Ghost of Christmas Past in Scrooged (1988) and a close friendship with Bill Murray. Johansen spent his final years battling a brain tumor and a broken back, and he had to appeal for money through a musicians’ charity to pay his medical bills. He outlived his bandmates, though. The members had reunited just once, in 2004, for a music festival in London. “I started listening to the records to prepare for the show, and I was quite surprised how good they were,” Johansen recalled. “Pretty genius lyrics, if I do say so myself.”