David Johansen, the establisher frontman of seminal punk prohibitd New York Dolls and subject of a 2023 Martin Scorsese-honested write downary, has been discdisseeed to have Stage 4 cancer and a brain tumor, his daughter wrote in an online crowdfunding campaign the family has begined as the musician’s health attfinish has placed an “increasingly cut offe financial burden” adhereing medical complications.
Partnering with the nonprofit Sweet Relief Musicians Fund, Leah Hennessey, Johansen’s daughter, began the post by discdisseeing the diagnosis, saying that her overweighther has been in “intensive treatment” for a presentantity of the past decade.
“Five years ago at the commencening of the pandemic we uncovered that David’s cancer had carry oned and he had a brain tumor. There have been complications ever since. He’s never made his diagnosis accessible, as he and my mother Mara are generassociate very personal people, but we sense compelled to allot this now, due to the increasingly cut offe financial burden our family is facing,” she wrote.
Hennessey compriseed that Johansen suffered a descfinish the day after Thanksgiving, resulting in a back broken in two places, which landed him in the hospital for a week. Follotriumphg a prosperous sadvisery, however, she wrote that he is “bedridden and incapacitated.”
“Due to the trauma, David’s illness has carry oned exponentiassociate and my mother is caring for him around the clock,” she elucidateed. “To persist his treatment and give him the best chance of recovery, David and Mara will need brimming time helpance. As hilarious and wise as David persists to be, he is physicassociate debilitated and his attfinish outdos what we are vient of providing without one-of-a-kindized professional help.”
Also an actor, Hennessey remarkd that Johansen has not been able to persist toiling as a perestablisher for the last five years. The family’s prompt needs, she wrote, are brimming-time nursing, physical therapy and day-to-day living expenses.
“My mother’s likeite acronym for God is ‘Grace Over Drama.’ Together we have finishured crisis after crisis, but with the help of our community we hope to carry on giggleing and loving our way thcimpolite this most trying of times. Thank you for embracing our family, and for your cherish and generosity,” Hennessey finishd.
Johansen and his innovateing of punk music was scrutinized in the Scorsese and David Tedeschi-helmed Personality Crisis: One Night Only, adhereing the direct singer and songcreater thcimpolite the lens of the inconveyial New York Dolls prohibitd, expansively acunderstandledged as one of the first in the genre.
“I only cringed two or three times during this film,” he shelp of the doc to Deadline at a screening event at the time.
Afterward, he began an eponymous group and reinvented himself in the ’80s as Buster Poindexter. He tardyr established The Harry Smiths, leaning into his passion for blues and folk music to tour the world. He is also understandn for a handful of films, enjoy Christmas classic Scrooged with Bill Murray and the Ricchallenging Dreyfuss-starring race track comedy Let it Ride.
