David Geffen

(1943–)

Principal, DreamWorks SKG

Nationality: American.

Born: February 21, 1943, in New York City, New York.

Education: Attended University of Texas, Austin, and Brooklyn College, City University of New York.

Family: Son of Abraham Geffen and Batya Volovskaya.

Career: CBS Studios, 1961, usher; William Morris Agency, 1964–1966, mailroom employee; 1966–1969, agent; Tuna Fish Records, 1969–1970, CEO; Asylum Records, 1970, principal; Geffen Records, 1980–1994, chairman and CEO; DreamWorks SKG, 1994–, principal.

Address: DreamWorks SKG, 1000 Flower Street, Glendale, California 91201; http://www.dreamworks.com.

A seminal figure in the entertainment industry, David Geffen was a billionaire who never graduated from college. Having worked primarily as a talent agent and music producer, Geffen had a precise eye for spotting talent and helped develop such stars as the Eagles, Guns N' Roses, and Nirvana. Joni Mitchell based her song "Free Man in Paris" on Geffen. It is almost impossible to overstate Geffen's contribution to popular music. Not one to rest on his laurels, along with his powerful peers Stephen Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg, Geffen also launched the most ambitious challenge to the Hollywood studio system in some time. His life epitomized the classic ragsto-riches story. He used his brilliant drive to rise from humble beginnings, vowing to make it at all costs. A complex and often contradictory character, he was openly gay, open about his battles with depression, and seemed to use philanthropy to offset a predatory business nature.

An Inherited Fight for Survival

Geffen's mother fled Russia around 1917 after the Russian Revolution and never again saw her family except for a sister who, years later, told her that most of their family had perished.

The news gave her a nervous breakdown and the Ukrainian immigrant was institutionalized for about six months. Geffen told Playboy magazine: "I was six, and the whole episode was confusing and terrifying for me. My mom went from having her own business to being in a hospital. It was embarrassing because all my friends thought she was crazy" (September 1994).

The Geffen family suffered financially, and although it had enough money for the essentials, Geffen recalls wearing illfitting clothes. His father, an eccentric career dilettante who could not keep a job, contributed almost nothing and his mother picked up the slack, fearing that her family would have to live on welfare. Throughout his childhood, Geffen worked with his mother in the family's corset-and-brassiere business in Brooklyn. Geffen credited his mother for forging his work ethic: "My mother taught me to love my work. I learned everything about business from her. I watched her work. She enabled me to work" (Playboy, September 1994). While his father, who died when Geffen was 18, did little to help the family financially, he clearly inspired his son to seek a life beyond mere survival: "Dad was an intellectual…. [Mom] made the money and he read a lot. He wasn't successful or ambitious. He spoke lots of languages" (New York Times, May 2, 1993).

Behind the Music

Geffen barely passed high school and dropped out of college, yearning for a job in the entertainment business. At 18 he worked as an usher at CBS Studios. He next landed a job in the mailroom at the William Morris Agency by falsely claiming that he had graduated from UCLA, because a college degree was required for the job. Leaving nothing to chance, he stole a letter from UCLA that arrived in the mailroom one morning, steamed it open, and forged a note on the university stationery to create the appearance that he graduated.

While Geffen's starting salary was $55 a week working in the mailroom, within five years he had become an agent and made $2 million in 1969. With initial clients such as the Association and Joni Mitchell, he went on to represent many of the stars that would define a generation of music, including Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young; Janis Joplin; James Taylor; and Bob Dylan. But Geffen did not just manage existing music acts, he helped to create new ones. And in the process he amassed a personal fortune. At age 26 he sold his first music label, Tuna Fish Records, to CBS for $4.5 million. In 1970 he formed Asylum Records, which quickly became one of the most successful record labels in the industry, featuring artists such as Linda Ronstadt, Jackson Browne, J. D. Souther, and the Eagles (the top-selling band for several years). Geffen sold Asylum to Warner Communications in 1972 for $7 million.

In 1973 he opened the famous Roxy nightclub on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. In 1974 he scored a coup by luring Bob Dylan away from Columbia Records, giving Dylan his first number one album (Planet Waves) and masterminding his first concert tour since 1965. Geffen quit the entertainment business in 1975 upon learning that he had cancer. Shockingly, in 1980 he learned that the cancer diagnosis had been wrong—a turn of events that set him back on the path to making music. When Geffen Records was founded in 1980, Warner Bros. Records provided 100 percent of the funding for the label's operations, while Geffen retained 50 percent of the profits. Geffen Records, which produced artists such as Guns N' Roses, Nirvana, Don Henley, Peter Gabriel, and Aerosmith, quickly earned a reputation as one of the most successful independent labels in the United States. Geffen sold the label in 1990 to MCA—a deal that ultimately earned him an estimated $1 billion in cash and stock and an employment contract that ran until 1995.

A Personal Life That Transforms an Image

Geffen acknowledged that he had a torrid romance with Cher, which began while she was still involved with Sonny Bono and working on The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour, and he later dated the actress Marlo Thomas. By 1980, however, he had come to terms with his homosexuality, and in the early 1990s he publicly announced that he was gay at an AIDS benefit. Said one of Geffen's closest friends, designer Calvin Klein: "He just seems so relieved. He felt he could be a role model. Gay men are not necessarily thought of as the shrewdest businessmen in the world. He felt he should do this publicly as well as for himself and he's really much happier" (Guardian, June 5, 1993).

David Geffen ultimately became one of the most important forces in the gay rights movement, accepting numerous accolades and honorariums and becoming a loud voice in the fight against AIDS. When President Clinton was forming a policy regarding gays in the military, Geffen advocated against a ban. He lobbied Washington and took out full-page ads in newspapers.

Playing the Part of the Mogul

A billionaire many times over, Geffen acknowledged that his two biggest personal expenses were his $26 million Gulfstream jet, custom stocked with potato knishes, and a $47.5 million estate in Beverly Hills that once was the residence of the Hollywood mogul Jack Warner. Ironically, Jack Warner's Warner Communications had enriched Geffen earlier in his career by buying his Asylum Records. Geffen was long fascinated by the house, and when he spotted the gates to the estate open one day, he drove in just to catch a glimpse. Years later Jack Warner's widow died, and a developer tried to subdivide the property, but Geffen reacted immediately. "All of a sudden I got protective about it. So I bought it, with everything in it, instantly. I just bought it with all the furniture, all the scripts, all the Oscars, everything. I mean, this is the home of one of the men who created the town and the industry…. I was to tally enthralled by the world that this guy had created (Guardian, June 5, 1993).

The Golden Touch

Throughout his career Geffen stayed focused on music while consistently demonstrating a willingness to venture into other artistic enterprises. His track record of movie and theater hits is formidable. As a movie producer Geffen financed such films as Risky Business, Beetlejuice, The Last Boy Scout, Defending Your Life, After Hours, Lost in America, Little Shop of Horrors, and Personal Best. The plays he helped produce included Cats, Dreamgirls, Miss Saigon, and M. Butterfly, which was also made into a Geffen film.

Principles Before Principal

David Geffen demonstrated that he could place his personal values above turning a profit, and he did not hesitate to end business relationships that he deemed inappropriate. During a controversy over the violence that rap music seemed to condone, if not endorse, Geffen stopped distributing Def American Records. He said: "It was consistently putting out records I found offensive. I'm not interested in making records about violence against women, and some horrible other images. It was a choice I had to make" (Playboy, September 1994).

An Entertainment Triumvirate Is Formed

In 1994 Geffen and partners Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg created what they envisioned as a multimedia force for the new millennium. They called themselves the "Dream Team" and their company DreamWorks SKG. Each of the partners, whose last names provided the company name, invested $33 million. Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen provided $500 million in seed money, and Microsoft also invested around $30 million to develop video games. Geffen would lead the music division, Spielberg would oversee the movie sector, and Katzenberg would run the animation division. DreamWorks arranged a $100 million programming deal with ABC, a 10-year HBO licensing agreement worth an estimated $1 billion, and cofounded a $50 million animation studio with Silicon Graphics. DreamWorks announced plans in 1995 to build the first new film studio since the 1930s, just outside Los Angeles in Playa Vista.

Plays to His Strengths

Geffen reentered the music industry in 1996 and resumed his relationship with Geffen Records when SKG and its two new imprints—DreamWorks Records and SKG—formed a joint venture with the record label Geffen founded 15 years earlier. Under terms of his 1995 partnership with MCA, Geffen Records and parent company MCA would share the profits and cachet that came with being associated with David Geffen and the venerable SKG team, and SKG's new imprints would gain distribution. MCA saw Geffen as a magnet for top artists and music-industry executives. Said a top music business lawyer: "I'm sure managers of superstar acts with expiring recording pacts have already called David. And any label executive in town would kill to have a job there" (Daily Variety, June 14, 1995).

The Dream Team Stumbles

Early on, DreamWorks produced a string of TV, musical, and film flops and ultimately canceled its film-studio plans. In 1996 the company announced its partnership with SEGA and MCA (now Universal Studios) to develop SEGA GameWorks (video-arcade supercenters featuring SEGA titles and games designed by Spielberg). But while Dreamworks initially fell short of expectations, momentum began to change in 1998. That year the company released the disaster film Deep Impact, Spielberg's Oscar-winning Saving Private Ryan, and its first two animated films, Antz and The Prince of Egypt, both of which were successful. DreamWorks finished 1998 with the highest average gross per film of all the major studios. Later hits included American Beauty, which won an Oscar for best picture of 1999; Gladiator, which won an Oscar for best picture in 2000 and grossed $187 million; Shrek, which grossed more than $265 million at the box office in 2001; and A Beautiful Mind, a coproduction with Universal Pictures that won Dreamworks its third consecutive Oscar for best picture and grossed more than $140 million.

But Dreamworks continued to have troubles. A Web venture failed, and although the company routinely produced network pilots, as of 2004 the only TV hit to have emerged from DreamWorks was ABC's Spin City. In music, the industry where Geffen usually worked magic, hits were few and far between. In 2000 DreamWorks had only one album, Papa Roche's Infest, among Soundscan's top 50.

An Intimidating Mogul

In 2000 a biography that Geffen authorized, The Operator, was published. Geffen handpicked his biographer, Tom King, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, but midway through the writing process Geffen stopped cooperating, although he did allow the book to be published. The book tends to portray Geffen as a bully who was willing to sacrifice friends to achieve his enormous wealth.

According to the biography, Geffen's feuds with other entertainment executives, including former Disney executive Michael Ovitz, were legendary. Said Howard Rosenman, a movie producer and friend: "David will do anything for you if you're his friend. But if you're his enemy, well, you might as well kill yourself" (Guardian, June 5, 1993). Some of Geffen's lore is likely the result of the petty jealousies that arise with such a dominant executive. Known to be immensely intelligent, despite never having graduated from college, Geffen was a multi-millionaire in the music business at age 25. He had a sharp memory and seldom took notes during business meetings.

A Purpose Larger Than Profits

Geffen and DreamWorks continued betting its future on animation. The studio began issuing collectible fish figurines representing characters in the 2004 film Shark Tale played by Robert DeNiro, Will Smith, Renee Zellweger, Angelina Jolie, and others. Additionally, DeNiro agreed to screen excerpts from Shark Tale at his burgeoning Tribeca Film Festival. DreamWorks also started a Web site, dwkids.com, that featured games, free tickets, newsletters, and information about upcoming films, such as Shrek 2. Geffen claimed that the goal of DreamWork's animation efforts was not to make money, but rather to build a substantial library of popular culture. Said Geffen: "Steven Spielberg and I have tremendous amounts of money. You can't spend or even use most of it; it's just on some financial statement, and other people are playing with it. So I'm not in this because I need or want to make another billion; that would have no value. It's all in the doing, all in the journey" (Time, March 27, 1995).

A Focus on Philanthropy

Geffen was well known for his philanthropy. He was particularly passionate about gay rights and fighting AIDS, which he said must be everyone's fight: "HIV infection and AIDS is growing—but so too is public apathy. We have already lost too many friends and colleagues. I hope my gifts will encourage more people to come forward and give generously. In the face of so much death, we must do all we can to support life (Daily Variety, August 10, 1995).

Before he helped create DreamWorks, Geffen gave all of his profit from movies and Broadway shows to charities. He also gave two $5 million donations to the arts. He was notably proud that his foundation gave sizable gifts annually to many worthy causes that touched him personally, including AIDS and assistance to Ethiopian and Soviet Jews settling in Israel. Geffen was known to personally answer letters from men with AIDS or families of AIDS patients, some of them even including $10,000 checks. In 2002 he donated $200 million to UCLA's medical school, the largest single gift ever to a U.S. medical school or to the University of California. Geffen gave the university complete freedom in deciding how to spend the money. In a press release he said: "I have great respect and affection for UCLA, and my hope is that with this gift, UCLA's doctors and researchers will be better equipped to unravel medicine's mysteries—and deliver the cures for tomorrow" (Los Angeles Times, May 7, 2002).

Sources for Further Information

Corliss, Richard, "Hey, Let's Put on a Show! Start Our Own Multimedia Company! Get Investors to Give Us $2 Billion! Prove the Naysayers Wrong! An Inside Look at the Dreamworks Saga—Act 1," Time, March 27, 1995, p. 54.

Ornstein, Charles, and Stuart Silverstein, "Record Donation to UCLA," Los Angeles Times, May 7, 2002.

Sandler, Adam, "Gotham AIDS Orgs Get $4 Mil from David Geffen," Daily Variety, August 10, 1995.

——, "MCA's Dream Comes True; Geffen Reunited with Labels," Daily Variety, June 14, 1995.

Sheff, David, "Interview: David Geffen," Playboy September 1994, p. 51.

Weinraub, Bernard, "David Geffen, Still Hungry," New York Times, May 2, 1993.

——, "Portrait: The Geffen Game," Guardian (London), June 5, 1993.

—Timothy Halpern

• Born: February 21, 1943, Brooklyn, NY
• Genres: Rock
• Instrument: Director, Direction, ?

Biography

Though not always the most popular figure in rock music -- just ask Jerry Wexler, who called him a greedy agent, or writer Fred Goodman, who went to great lengths to pan him in a book about the music industry -- David Geffen has nevertheless been one of the most important figures in the corporate rock world of the last 30 years. He is responsible for guiding the careers of such big-name acts as Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Laura Nyro, Jackson Browne and the Eagles, believing in the artists when few others did. Geffen is also believed by some, however, to be the definitive figure in shaping the greed and excess of the music industry during the '70s, the shark who changed the priority from music to money. Indeed, the overinflated claim alone is indicative of the power and influence David Geffen has had on the music business.

As a boy growing up in Brooklyn, Geffen dreamed of becoming a Hollywood mogul. He avidly read the Hollywood gossip columns and spent his spare time at the local movie theaters. As a teenager, Geffen found his idol while reading a book about revered studio head Louis B. Mayer. But although the boy had his sights set on success, he was never a very good student, nor could he maintain a job. Barely passing high school, he failed out of the University of Texas and Brooklyn College before returning home and getting fired from two low-level jobs at CBS for being too aggressive. After a period of anxiety over his future, Geffen landed a job at the William Morris Talent Agency by padding his resumé with a false degree from UCLA and a nonexistent internship on The Danny Kaye Show.

At William Morris, Geffen's drive to succeed and overaggressiveness was greeted with open arms. He was the first to work every morning, reading everyone's mail before it was delivered to them and soaking up everything he could about the business. Choosing the music department -- not for any particular love of music, but rather because it seemed like the fastest track to success -- Geffen was soon the New York contact for such groups as the Buffalo Springfield. The young agent got his first break when he wrestled a young songwriter named Laura Nyro away from a fellow agent. Geffen doted on Nyro, spending excessive amounts of time and energy on the talented young performer, and when Nyro's compositions began to make their way into the hands of artists such as Frank Sinatra and the Fifth Dimension, both their fortunes took a turn for the better. Negotiating with Clive Davis at Columbia, Geffen secured a three-million-dollar deal for Nyro, becoming a successful independent agent and a millionaire at the age of 27.

Taking on a young protégé named Elliott Roberts, Geffen showed the young man the ins and outs of the business, and when Roberts began managing Joni Mitchell and Neil Young, the success spilled over onto Geffen. Around the same time that Young and Mitchell were becoming stars, Geffen was helping Atlantic Records gain the rights to a newly formed supergroup, Crosby, Stills and Nash. The group became million-sellers before they even set foot on stage and, spurred by his success, Geffen bankrolled a label to be distributed by Atlantic. Geffen's label, Asylum, capitalized on the growing movement of mellow southern California rock by signing Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, Joni Mitchell and the Eagles among others.

By now, with a lucrative management partnership with Roberts and a new label, Geffen was an emerging force in the industry. In 1973, two years after Geffen sold Asylum to Warner Bros. for seven million dollars, he became head of the newly merged Elektra/Asylum label. Geffen had gained the reputation of being a tough negotiator for his acts, a real shark who would go after labels, publishers and producers. But with that business ethos also came the end of the innocence for labels and artists. Geffen muscled producer Paul Rothchild out the door once CSNY became successful; in 1975 the Eagles sued him to regain control of their publishing, from which Geffen had made millions. By now Geffen had also burned bridges with former associates like Ahmet Ertegun and Clive Davis.

Geffen retired in 1976, citing burnout and health risks, but in 1980, after four years away from the industry and a false cancer diagnosis, Geffen returned to form Geffen Records as a part of the Warner Bros. family. He paid big money to sign Elton John and Donna Summer (both artists never earned their worth and eventually left the label) and signed Neil Young (who was managed by Geffen's old friend and business partner Elliott Roberts), promising to give the eccentric singer respect and dedication. However, in a move that angered many, not just Young and Roberts, Geffen sued Young in 1983 on the grounds that the singer had failed to make "commercial" records. The move was seen as the ultimate confirmation that Geffen, though he preached about artistic freedom, cared little about his artists and was only concerned with revenue. In 1985 the case was dropped and Young returned to his old label, Warner/Reprise, where he enjoyed a creative and commercial resurgence.

In the late '80s, Geffen too emerged back on top of the industry. Though the earlier part of the decade saw giant losses, new signings such as Guns N' Roses, Aerosmith and Cher had paid big dividends, making Geffen Records a $300 million operation. In the '90s, Geffen signed Nirvana and Sonic Youth and went to the forefront of the growing alternative music marketplace. The company and its founder continue to find success. ~ Steve Kurutz, All Music Guide

David Geffen (born 1943) has emerged as one of the wealthiest individuals in rock music through his combined talents as a manager, label owner, and film producer.

Beginnings

David Geffen's father, Abraham Geffen, was only three years old in 1906 when his Jewish family packed their few belongings and left their home in Vilna, Russia, for America. Many years later, in 1930, a marriageable "Abe" Geffen would again cross the Atlantic, having decided to use his hard-earned savings to see the world. Taking leave of his job as a Western Union telegrapher, he made his way first to Europe and later to Palestine, where he met a pretty seamstress by the name of Batya Volovskaya.

Volovskaya had been born in a small village in the Ukraine in 1907. Her father was a wealthy Jewish landowner. Her mother ran a small pharmacy and cosmetology business. When she was thirteen, Volovskaya's parents sent her to live with an aunt in Romania so that she could continue her studies. After the aunt died, Volovskaya was unable to return to Russia because the Bolsheviks had cut off all communication between Russia and Romania. She chose instead to go to Palestine, where her father had relatives.

During Abe Geffen's stay in Tel Aviv, Volovskaya introduced him to the intellectual and artistic circles of that city. Although Volovskaya could not speak English, she was able to converse with Abe in Yiddish. Abe, however, returned to America alone. Back home, Abe Geffen kept up a correspondence with the young seamstress, while saving everything he could towards making a return trip to Palestine. In 1931, he succeeded in making his second trip, during which he married Volovskaya. That November, the pair arrived at Ellis Island, New York. The newlyweds took an apartment on Manhattan's Lower East Side, and their first child, a boy named Misha, was born in 1933. On February 21, 1943, their second son, David Lawrence Geffen, joined the family.

Childhood

When David Geffen was six years old, his mother had what was then called a "nervous breakdown" and had to be hospitalized. During the six months that she was in the hospital, his grandmother cared for David. The young boy exhibited emotional problems during his mother's absence, and after she was released, Batya Geffen arranged to have them both treated by a psychiatrist.

Later David's parents opened a successful corset shop. Batya, a good businesswoman, taught her youngest son the value of hard work. But his parents' long hours away from home left David unsupervised for lengthy periods. Geffen later said he used his unstructured time to attend Broadway musicals and to listen to recordings of show tune musicals.

Show Business

Geffen once claimed to have had 17 jobs between high school and the time that he was hired as an usher at the CBSTV studios in New York, but he could not fall in love with any of them. Not at least until he got the job at CBS, where he was allowed to watch TV rehearsals with the likes of Judy Garland and Red Skelton.

Eventually he was hired as a receptionist for a new CBS TV series called The Reporters, but after he made the mistake of offering some suggestions to the show's producer, he lost the job. He then approached the show's casting director, asking her whether there was anything he could do. When she asked him what it was he could do, he reportedly replied, "Nothing." The casting director jokingly suggested he might want to consider becoming an agent.

William Morris Agency

Geffen apparently took her advice seriously and applied for a job in the mailroom of the William Morris Agency. The mailroom brought Geffen into contact with everybody at William Morris, and he has said that the job was the first one he held where he knew he was in the right place.

Geffen worked his way up to agent at William Morris and became a specialist in signing and managing rock 'n' roll artists. He worked with Laura Nyro, who had recently received disappointing reviews at the Monterey Pop Festival. Geffen promoted her by keeping her out of major concerts until she had achieved a following and then booked her into Carnegie Hall, where she sold out twice. Nyro's first album on Verve had not sold well, and Geffen landed her a contract on Columbia, where her albums scored well on the record charts. With Nyro's songs selling, Geffen renegotiated her contract with Columbia and in the process made himself a millionaire - at the tender age of 27.

Formed Asylum Records

Geffen went on to sign Crosby, Stills and Nash to Atlantic Records. After Atlantic refused to sign Jackson Browne, however, Geffen formed his own label, Asylum Records, with Elliot Roberts. Asylum would eventually sign many other top West Coast artists. According to Geffen's biographer, Tom King, "Geffen … wanted [Asylum] to be known as a sanctuary for artists, a place where they could make their music and be free from any kind of corporate interference."

But there may have been a darker side to Geffen's decision to form Asylum. According to King, Geffen was all too willing to sabotage personal relationships to get what he wanted. "For example," King told ABCNews.com in 2000, "he signed the Eagles, Joni Mitchell and others to his Asylum Records label with false promises and suspect business contracts."

In any case, the label began selling in 1972-73 after Asylum had signed Browne, Joni Mitchell and Linda Ronstadt. Geffen, meanwhile, refused to let members of the band that would later become known as the Eagles record until he felt they were ready. Geffen's call proved to be on target, and the Eagles would go on to become one of rock 'n' roll's biggest acts.

Warner Brothers

Geffen's next move was to sell Asylum to the Warner/ Elektra/Atlantic (WEA) distribution company for $7 million. The sale brought more money to the Eagles; at the same time WEA more than recouped the purchase price of Asylum through sales of albums by Linda Ronstadt and the Eagles. This sale would prove to be one of the few times that Geffen would undervalue his artists.

The deal also left Geffen on contract with Warner Brothers. He managed to regain control of the Asylum label after it was taken from Warner Brothers Atlantic division and combined with its Elektra operation. In 1974, Geffen scored a major coup when he cajoled Bob Dylan into signing a contract. Dylan ended up making two albums for Geffen on Elektra/Asylum, but he left after he was offered a better royalty rate elsewhere. Geffen also signed Andrew Gold, Tom Waits, and a revamped Byrds.

But Geffen was restless. He tried his hand at Los Angeles club management, and, without success, as vice-chairman of Warner Brothers Pictures. After his Warner Brothers contract expired, he chose to move on.

Cancer Diagnosis

About this time Geffen was diagnosed with bladder cancer, though a second opinion failed to confirm the earlier diagnosis. Nevertheless, in 1976 Geffen decided to retire from the music industry to attend to his perceived health problems. Four years later, he would be back.

Geffen Records

In 1980, Geffen became a consultant and formed his own record label, Geffen Records, with Warner Brothers money. He signed John Lennon, after bringing the former Beatle out of a five-year retirement, to make an album entitled "Double Fantasy" that was released in November 1980. Although Geffen Records also had contracts with Elton John and Peter Gabriel in the United States, Donna Summer, Joni Mitchell, Asia, Don Henley, Neil Young, Was (Not Was), Greg Copeland, and Lone Justice, Geffen's leading stars were not at that time at the peaks of their careers, and his label struggled. Meanwhile, Geffen invested in several Broadway musicals, including Dreamgirls and Cats, and achieved some success as a film producer (Geffen Films produced Risky Business, Beetlejuice, and Little Shop of Horrors).

In exchange for distribution rights for five years, Steve Ross of Warner Brothers agreed to sign over Geffen Records to David Geffen. The record company had not achieved any real success up until then, and Geffen had sometimes been forced to ask Ross for advances. After Geffen sold 13 million copies of one Guns N' Roses album, he tried to sell the company back to Ross. But Ross declined the offer. In 1990, Thorn-EMI attempted to buy Geffen Records for a reported $750 million, but Geffen instead sold it to MCA for approximately $530 million in stock, which made him the largest shareholder. In 1989, Geffen and MCA had more top selling albums than any other company. When Matsushita bought MCA in 1991, Geffen became a billionaire.

Gay Spokesperson

In 1992, Geffen publicly acknowledged his homosexuality at an AIDS benefit in Los Angeles. Even though Geffen's sexual preference was widely known among his associates as early as the 1960s, it was not something that he talked about very much. But Geffen's speech in Los Angeles had the effect of making him a spokesman for gay issues.

When President Clinton proposed ending the ban on homosexuals in the military, he turned to Geffen for feedback. With military officials opposing the idea on the grounds that it would be bad for morale, Geffen became a torch carrier for the president's proposal. But after a month spent trying to turn public opinion in favor of the plan, Clinton was forced to adopt a "don't ask, don't tell" compromise. Geffen, for his part, backed away from the issue, saying that overturning the ban would not be worth committing political suicide.

Dream Works

In 1995, Geffen formed the Dream Works movie studio with Steven Spielberg, Mo Ostin, and Jeffrey Katzenberg. Each partner contributed $33 million in start-up capital, making them title to 67 percent of the company. By 1995, they had attracted more than $2 billion that they would use to release films, television shows, interactive games, animated films, and music. DreamWorks even negotiated a partnership with Microsoft for their computer releases. One of the first achievements of the company's record division, DreamWorks SKG Music, was to extract George Michael from his Sony contract.

In October 1999, Dream Works announced its plans to create an internet entertainment company under the name of Pop.com in a joint venture with Imagine Entertainment. The start-up was to offer short films, streaming video, live events, games, performance art, and continuing series. Pop.com 's creators hoped to encourage film and video artists to create new material for the site. But after merger talks broke down in September 2000, the founders of Pop.com decided to terminate the venture. Geffen and his partners reportedly could not figure out how the start-up would be able to make any money given that only a handful of Internet users then had the high-speed connections needed to make live video interesting. The audience to sustain such a venture was still in the dream stage.

The Operator

Even though Geffen long ago made enough money to tempt him from ever doing another day's honest work, he reportedly plans to continue working for many more years. Dream Works partner Jeffrey Katzenberg once praised Geffen's integrity as a key to his success in the entertainment business. But in an unauthorized biography, published in 2000 and entitled The Operator: David Geffen Builds, Buys and Sells the New Hollywood, Wall Street Journal columnist Tom King portrayed Geffen as a man with few scruples who was all too willing to betray friends and sacrifice personal relationships to get what he wanted. Not surprisingly, Geffen took affront at the portrayal.

King told ABCNews.com in 2000: "[Geffen] apparently doesn't like the way the book portrays him. He has told people that he thinks the book is a 'total character assassination.' It is not. In my mind, the book is a very balanced portrait of a man who has made indisputable contributions to pop culture history. At the same time, he's no boy scout. He knocked a lot of people off the ladder on his way to the top, and those people's stories are reflected in the book too."

Books

King, Tom, The Operator: David Geffen Builds, Buys, and Sells the New Hollywood, Random House, 2000.

Periodicals

Calonius, Erik, "Their Wildest Dreams," Fortune, August 16, 1999.

Online

"David Geffen," Musicweb,http://www.musicweb.uk.net/encyclopaedia/g/G19.HTM (January 2003).

"Hollywood's High and Mighty: Chat with the Author of a Biography of David Geffen," ABCNews.com,http://abcnews.go.com/sections/business/DailyNews/king_chat000417.html (January 2003).

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

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