David Johansen embraces his New York Dolls, Buster Poindexter past in ‘Personality Crisis’
Singer David Johansen phones as he’s boarding a flight from New York City to Los Angeles, the chatter of flight attendants occasionally surfacing in the background as he talks about “Personality Crisis: One Night Only,” a new documentary on his life in music.
“We’re coming to Los Angeles because Showtime wants to show this thing to the Academy of Television Arts or something,” says Johansen, 73, a co-founder of the glitter-meetspunk New York Dolls, and later creator of the louche lounge singer Buster Poindexter.
“The people that vote on the Emmys,” he continues. “They’re very concerned about getting an Emmy.”
And why shouldn’t they be? “Personality Crisis” is the first documentary feature on Johansen, a figure in modern music whose interests and work in music tie together disparate strands that range from proto-punk to standards, opera to American roots music.
It’s co-directed by Martin Scorsese (and David Tedeschi), himself an iconic New Yorker whose music documentaries have previously included such artists as the Band, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, and George Harrison.
And it’s very good, seamlessly blending footage of Johansen’s show as Buster Pointdexter at the Café Carlyle in New York City on his 70th birthday in January 2020 with archival footage and photos, vintage talk show chats and new interviews conducted with Johansen by his stepdaughter Leah Hennessey during the pandemic lockdown.
“Personality Crisis” arrived on Showtime last month. In a conversation edited for length and clarity, and only occasionally interrupted by the flight crew’s admonishments to store overhead luggage and fasten seat belts, this is what we learned.
Q: How did you come to make the documentary? Was it something you wanted to do or something you had to be talked into?
A: Well, we were doing this two-week run at the Carlyle, and we had — my wife and I — this novel idea of having Buster do Johansen as opposed to what Buster usually does, like a lot of curated covers, you might say.
So we wanted to keep it going. We were looking for some off-Broadway kind of something. And my wife, Mara (Hennessey), she called Marty (Scorsese) and asked him to come and see it so he could kind of advise us about where to go with it.
And when he saw it, the same night, he said, “Oh, I want to shoot this.” So to make a long story short, that’s how it came about.
Q: Did it start as a concert film or was it always going to be a concert mixed with archival and interviews?
A: This was like January of 2020 and you know the plague was about to break out. So they shot the concert and then they kind of fooled around with it for a little while. I think they were still doing some Fran Lebowitz editing (for Scorsese’s 2021 docuseries “Pretend It’s a City”) as I recall.
Then they got an archivist who was very good, I think, who started digging up stuff and — voila. I mean, there was no plan in the beginning. Essentially, I think their idea was, “Let’s shoot the concert and then we’ll figure it out.”
Q: What was it like for you to spend time in your past, singing songs from the New York Dolls, your solo career, from Buster?
A: It was fun to do. I wanted to keep doing it. Though we didn’t go into a theater because then COVID came. And now I’m glad that we filmed it. I was reluctant at first, you know. But then I was persuaded to be whatever you want to call it, the subject — or the victim.
Q: I’ve seen you talk about your reluctance to appear in documentaries on punk or rock or New York City in the ’70s. Why is that?
A: I’ve said this many times. Often, I’m asked to be in documentaries about certain aspects of show business. And I usually just say no because every time — I’ve done one or two in the past — I saw myself I’m just like, “Oh my God, who is this guy and what’s he talking about?”
Q: How was this one different?
A: Well, our daughter Leah was the inquisitor in those sections. She just asked me questions and we had — I guess you could say it was a dialogue, but I guess maybe they edited it so that it was mainly me talking. It was nice talking to her, because I was able to get a word in edgewise.
And this one, when I saw it I thought it’s kind of interesting to me. It’s something I can live with. I only cringed two or three times, and usually that was just about a turn of phrase as opposed to something that I actually did. I said this is a good take on an aspect of my life.
Q: There’s a line in it that caught my attention where you say, “It’s best to leave an incomplete picture of yourself” — why do you feel that way?
A: Anyone who’s in the public, no matter how much of it or how small, would eventually wind up scorned. You have to decide whether you’re going to wind up scorned or forgotten or leave an incomplete picture of yourself.
You know it’s impossible for a person to leave a complete image of themselves anyway because there’s so much going on in our heads. We’re constantly evolving and constantly transcending one moment to the next moment yet including everything that we’ve ever been.
Q: The film’s been finished for a while — what else are you working on now?
A: We’re working on an audio version of the concert (in the film) which is going to come out soon. Working on that. And we’re gonna hopefully start doing some more shows this summer.