NEW YORK—Ric Ocasek, lead singer of The Cars, a band best known for their hit “Just What I Needed,” was discovered dead Sunday afternoon in his Manhattan apartment.
The New York Police Department said that officers found the 75-year-old Ocasek at about 4 p.m. after responding to a 911 call. They said there were no signs of foul play and that the medical examiner was to determine a cause of death.
The death comes a year after The Cars were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, followed by an announcement by model Paulina Porizkova on social media that she and Ocasek had separated after 28 years of marriage. The pair first met while filming the music video for “Drive,” another Cars hit.
The first three songs on their 1978 self-titled first album were all hit singles: “Good Times Roll,” ″My Best Friend’s Girl” and “Just What I Needed.”
They had 10 other singles in the Billboard top 40, and of their seven studio albums, four were in Billboard’s top 10.
The band broke up in 1988.
The Cars were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2018 after being nominated twice before. During the ceremony, Ocasek paid tribute to Orr, who died in 2000 of pancreatic cancer.
“It’s quite strange to be here without him,” Ocasek said.
In announcing the separation last year, Porizkova said that their family is “a well-built car.” But she says that “as a bicycle, my husband and I no longer pedal in unison.” Ocasek had six sons, two from each of his three marriages.
He grew up in Baltimore, and his family moved to Cleveland when he was a teenager. After graduating high school he had stints at Antioch College and Bowling Green State University in the mid-1960s before dropping out to pursue music.
Ocasek met Orr in 1965 and they formed their own first band called ID Nirvana in 1968. In the 1970s they relocated to Boston and formed bands including the folk-rock Milkwood and also played as an acoustic duo before finding their calling when they created The Cars.
By Tom Hays And Andrew Dalton
