David Johansen, New York Dolls Frontman and Punk P

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Singer and actor, who scored a hit with "Hot Hot Hot" as his alter ego Buster Poindexter, dies after revealing Stage Four cancer battle last month

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David Johansen, frontman for the New York Dolls and the last surviving original member of that pioneering punk band, has died at the age of 75.

The death of the singer who also moonlighted as his swing music alter ego Buster Poindexter and, as an actor, appeared in films like Scrooged and Let It Ride, was confirmed Saturday by Mara and Leah Hennessey, Johansen’s wife and stepdaughter.

“David Johansen died at home in NYC on Friday afternoon holding hands with his wife Mara Hennessey and daughter Leah, surrounded my music, flowers, and love,” they said in a statement to Rolling Stone. “He was 75 years old and died of natural causes after nearly a decade of illness.”

Johansen’s death comes less than a month after he revealed he was battling Stage Four cancer and a brain tumor, and had been bedridden and incapacitated following a fall in November where he broke his back in two places. A fund was launched by Johansen’s family to raise money for his around-the-clock care.

The New York City-born Johansen was best known for his work in the pioneering punk group the New York Dolls, with whom — during the band’s initial run in the first half of the Seventies — he recorded a pair of influential glam punk albums, 1973’s New York Dolls and 1974’s Too Much Too Soon, with Johansen co-writing the bulk of the albums with guitarist Johnny Thunders.

Johansen started singing professionally when he fronted the Staten Island group the Vagabond Missionaries in the late Sixties, but didn’t find any real success until late 1971 when he teamed up with guitarists Thunders and Rick Rivets, bassist Arthur “Killer” Kane, and drummer Billy Murcia to form the New York Dolls. (Sylvain Sylvain replaced Rivets after just a few months.)

Heavy metal and prog rock were ascendant at the time, but they concocted a completely unique sound that fused together glam rock and proto-punk with attitude and a fashion sense borrowed from Sixties girl groups. The New York rock scene had never seen anything quite like them, and they quickly became regulars at the Mercer Arts Center, the trendy downtown club frequented by Andy Warhol and David Bowie.

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