David Geffen

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David Geffen (born February 21, 1943) is an American record executive, film producer, theatrical producer, and philanthropist. Geffen is most noted for creating Geffen Records in 1980, along with his later role as one of the three founders of Dreamworks SKG in 1994. According to Forbes he is a billionaire.

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[edit] Biography

Born in New York to Jewish-American parents, Geffen attended the University of Texas at Austin but soon dropped out.

He began his entertainment career in the mailroom at the William Morris Agency, where he quickly became an agent. He left William Morris to become a personal manager and was immediately successful with Laura Nyro and Crosby, Stills and Nash. In the process of looking for a record deal for young Jackson Browne, Ahmet Ertegun suggested that Geffen start his own record label.

[edit] Asylum Records

Geffen founded Asylum Records in 1971, which signed artists such as Jackson Browne, The Eagles, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Tom Waits and Linda Ronstadt. Asylum was acquired by Warner Communications and merged with Elektra Records in 1972 to become Elektra/Asylum Records. Geffen remained in charge until 1975, when he resigned as director after being informed (erroneously) that he had a life-threatening illness. He worked briefly as a Vice Chairman of the Warner Bros. film studios and also spent a short time teaching business studies at Yale University. He then retired until 1980. A new medical diagnosis revealed the error in the original diagnosis and Geffen was given a clean bill of health. Geffen decided to return to working in the entertainment industry.

[edit] Geffen Records

In 1980, he founded Geffen Records. The Geffen label's meteoric rise to prominence within the year proved a bittersweet success. In hindsight the December release of John Lennon's album Double Fantasy seems an impressive feat for a new label, but at the time Lennon stated that Geffen was the only one with enough confidence in him to agree to a deal without hearing the record first. Later that month Lennon was fatally shot and Double Fantasy became a massive seller. Over the years Geffen Records/DGC has become well known as a label with a savvy ear for marketable talent and an uncommon faith in artistic vision, releasing memorable works by the likes of Cher, Aerosmith, Guns N' Roses, Nirvana, Neil Young, and Weezer. Geffen can be heard on Barbra Streisand’s The Broadway Album. The track Putting It Together features Geffen, Sydney Pollack, and Ken Sylk portraying the voices of record company executives talking to Barbra.[1]

[edit] Geffen Film/DreamworksSKG

Through the Geffen Film Company, David Geffen produced dark-tinged comedies such as (the 1986 version of) Little Shop of Horrors, Risky Business and Beetlejuice. Geffen was the Broadway backer for the musicals Dreamgirls and Cats. In 1994, Geffen co-founded the DreamWorks SKG studio with Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg.

Geffen is legendary for being outspoken about several issues, particularly on music copyrights. When interviewed about the licensing deal between UMG and Microsoft Zune, Geffen revealed he feels all owners of portable media players are guilty of copyright infringement. "Each of these devices is used to store unpaid-for material. This way, on top of the material people do pay for, the record companies are getting paid on the devices storing the copied music."[2]

David Geffen is also the subject of several books, most recently The Operator: David Geffen Builds, Buys, and Sells the New Hollywood (2001) by Thomas R. King, who initially had Geffen's cooperation, but later did not. An earlier biography was The Rise and Rise of David Geffen (1997) by Stephen Singular.

[edit] Politics

Geffen has developed a reputation as a prominent left wing philanthropist for his publicized support of medical research, AIDS organizations, the arts and theatre. He was an early financial supporter of President Bill Clinton. In 2001 he had a falling out with the former President over Clinton's decision to not pardon Leonard Peltier, on whose behalf he had lobbied the President[3].

Geffen is currently supporting Barack Obama for President and raised $1.3 million for Obama in a star-studded Beverly Hills fund raiser. On 21 February 2007, in an interview with Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, Geffen described Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton in unflattering terms: "Everybody in politics lies, but they do it with such ease, it's troubling." He said that Hillary Clinton was "incredibly polarizing" and described Bill Clinton as "reckless" and cast doubt on those who say he has become a different person since leaving office.[4][5]

[edit] Personal life

Geffen, who is openly gay, was the subject of a persistent but false 1990s rumor that he had married actor Keanu Reeves. Before he came out as openly gay, he dated Cher and Marlo Thomas in the late 1970's.

According to Forbes ("The 400 Richest Americans of 2004") and other sources, Geffen has pledged to give whatever money he makes from now on to charity, although he has not specified specific charities or the manner of his giving. In 2002, he announced a $200 million unrestricted endowment for UCLA Medical School.

Geffen's Malibu home on the Pacific Coast Highway has been a battlefront in an ongoing struggle between property owners and beachgoers over access to public beaches in front of private residences. In 2002, Geffen sued to block access to the public beach in front of his home. In 2005, facing a rising tide of anger, Geffen relented and allowed access through a non-profit group. Garry Trudeau parodied this dispute in his daily comic strip Doonesbury.

[edit] Art collection

Geffen is a keen collector of American artists' work, including Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Willem de Kooning. According to the chief curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, Paul Schimmel: "There's no collection that has a better representation of post-war American art than David Geffen's."[6].

In October 2006, he sold two paintings by Jasper Johns and a De Kooning from his collection for a combined sum of $143.5m. On November 3, 2006, the New York Times reported that Geffen had sold Pollock's 1948 painting No. 5, 1948 from his collection for $140m (£73.35m) to Mexican financier David Martinez. Martinez is the founder of London-based Fintech Advisory Ltd, a financial house that specializes in buying Third World debt. The sale made No. 5, 1948 the most expensive work of art ever sold (outstripping the $134m paid in October 2006 for Gustav Klimt's portrait Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I by cosmetics heir Ronald Lauder).

The art work sales have prompted speculation that Geffen was storing up resources for a bid to buy the Los Angeles Times. In early January 2007, the industry trade paper Daily Variety reported that Geffen had made a $2 billion offer for the Times, estimated to be half of Geffen's net worth, but that the newspaper had put the offer on hold, pending future negotiations with other buyers[7]

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.barbranews.com/albummonth.htm
  2. ^ Leeds, Jeff. "Microsoft Strikes Deal for Music", New York Times, 2006-11-09. Retrieved on 2006-11-14.
  3. ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6387615.stm
  4. ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6387615.stm
  5. ^ http://newsmax.com/archives/ic/2007/2/22/00733.shtml?s=ic
  6. ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6387615.stm
  7. ^ http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/index.php?menuID=2&subID=1078

[edit] External links

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