The band had a quick success, but in a few years it dissolved, leaving only two albums from its heyday, “New York Dolls” (1973) and the prophetically titled “Too Much Too Soon” (1974, title borrowed from the actress’s autobiography Diana Barrymore). It did not produce any success for the radio, but its fame grew after the fact. As Mr. Sylvain put it in his memoirs, “There are no bones in ice cream” (2018, written with Dave Thompson), “We were reborn as a historical precedent, zero year of punk, the Roanoke settlers of the new world of the new wave. “
Mr. Murcia died of an overdose while the band was touring England in 1972. Johnny Thunders died in 1991. Jerry Nolan, who replaced Mr. Murcia and played on the albums, died in 1992. Mr. Sylvain continued to perform with their own groups and with Mr. Johansen after the Dolls’ dissolution. In 2004, he, Mr. Johansen and the other surviving member of Dolls, bassist Arthur Kane, met for the Meltdown Festival in London, but Mr. Kane died of leukemia soon after.
Mr. Sylvain once summed up the band’s bittersweet arc.
“It was like a race and we were like horses,” he said. “Dolls were horse number one. We were right there, two seconds from the finish line, and behind us were Ramones, Kiss, Dictators and Blondie, and the list goes on. Then we fell and broke our leg and the next guy won the race. “
Sylvain Sylvain Mizrahi was born on February 14, 1951, in Cairo. His father, David, a banker, was part of a Sephardic Jewish family from Turkey, and his mother, Marcelle, was of Syrian descent. The crisis of the Suez Canal in 1956, precipitated when the President of Egypt, Gamal Abdel Nasser, nationalized the channel, led to the emigration of the family.