| Childhood:
He was born on Lower East Side, Manhatten to working-class
Jewish Ukrainian émigreés. His parents,
Abe and Batya Geffen, were bra manufacturers.
Education:
In 1961 he enrolled at the University of Texas,
Austin, where his brother Mitchell was also a student.
Work:
Geffen's girlfriend's sister was dating Phil
Spector, and so the first show business contact
was made. He failed to graduate from university,
but got a job as an usher at CBS Television City.
He was sacked after punching a member of a television
audience for applauding when the assassination of
John Kennedy was announced.
In 1964 he joined the mailroom in the William Morris
Agency, which was then the biggest talent agency
in the world. He worked his way up through the company,
and by 1967 he was regarded as the most sought after
agent in William Morris.
He left William Morris in 1968 and took a job with
the Ashley Famous Agency.
In 1971 he founded Asylum Records. The Company managed
The Eagles and Joni Mitchell. Asylum was sold to
Warner in 1972 for $7m. He then began working on
films with Warner.
He opened his Roxy nightclub, in 1973 on Suset Boulevard.
He met Cher at the opening night and they soon planned
to marry, but Cher changed her mind in early 1974.
Geffen is played by Mahryah Shain in the 1999 television
film And the Beat Goes On: The Sonny and Cher Story.
In 1975 he was hired by Warner Pictures as vice-chairman,
and chief assistant to the company's chairman, Ted
Ashley. However, they had a personality clash and
after 11 months Geffen was sacked. In 1980 he created
Geffen Records with Warner and signed up John Lennon,
Elton John, and Guns n' Roses. He sold the company
to MCA Records in 1989 for $550m.
He backed the musical Dreamgirls, in 1981, and Andrew
Lloyd Webber's Cats on Broadway.
In 1990 he bought the mansion in Los Angeles that
had belonged to Jack Warner for $47.5m which was
then the highest price paid for a single family
home in the USA.
In the early nineties, he also provided financial
backing for Bill Clinton's presidential campaign.
Greatest
Achievements: In 1994 he founded
the Dreamworks SKG Hollywood studio and entertainment
company with Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg
(see above). They have successes with Saving Private
Ryan, and American Beauty.
He has contributed to a various charities, and his
name is on several buildings in California, for
example, The Geffen Playhouse in UCLA.
Friends
& Relationships: In 2000 a media
stir was caused by the biography by Tom King and
its cataloguing of David Geffen's wheeler dealing
and betrayals of friends in order to get what he
wanted in his businesses. He came out publicly as
being gay in 1992 at a Hollywood Aids benefit when
he said '... as a gay man, I've come a long way
to be here tonight ...'.
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