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David Johansen, New York Dolls Frontman, Dead at 75

David Johansen, frontman of the New York Dolls, has died at age 75.

“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,” his rep said in a statement shared with Billboard. “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, who also acted and has appeared in films such as Scrooged and TV shows including Oz. “He’s never made his diagnosis public, as he and my mother Mara are generally very private people, but we feel compelled to share this now, due to the increasingly severe financial burden our family is facing,” his daughter Leah wrote on the fundraiser’s page.

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