Date of Birth
21 February 1943,
Brooklyn, New York, USA
David Lawrence Geffen
Mini Biography
David Geffen was born in Borough Park, Brooklyn, New York, to Abraham and Batya Geffen. He has an older brother Mitchell. Although his grades in school were generally poor, he credits his shopkeeper mother with teaching him his business skills. He started in the music business as an agent and quickly became one of the top agents in the industry. He earned a reputation as being the best friend you can have, but also the worst enemy--he had a very long, very public and very nasty feud with super-agent Michael Ovitz. Misdiagnosed with bladder cancer in 1976 (it wasn't until 1980 that he found out that he did not have cancer), he has since been a major contributor to medical charities and foundations, and has had several buildings named after him such as The Geffen Playhouse and The David Geffen School of Medicine, both at UCLA. He branched out into music publishing, record and film production by founding MCA. In 1990 he sold his company for more than one billion dollars, making him one of the richest people in the entertainment industry. His wealth is estimated to exceed $2.6 billion. He lives in Malibu, near Los Angeles.
Trivia
Billionaire.
Dated Cher
Dated Marlo Thomas.
Sold his eponymous company to MCA in 1990.
Co-founder with Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg of DreamWorks SKG.
Is openly gay.
Sits on USC School of Cinema-Television's Board of Councilors
Announced a $200 million donation to UCLA medical school in May 2002, the largest single donation to a U.S. medical school in history. The school will be named The David Geffen School of Medicine. The campus already includes The Geffen Playhouse which was also named when the Billionaire mogul donated $5 million. Geffen has also given bestowed gifts of $2.5 million to LA's AIDS Project, as well as another $2.5 million to NY's gay Men's Health Crisis, and $1.4 million to AIDS Action in Washington, DC.
In 1980 he signed John Lennon to what would prove to be the latter's last recording contract.
In 2005 he lost a California civil suit, forcing him to grant right-of-way to public sunbathers on the beach of his private home in Carbon beach, California.
Same birth Date as Mikhail Vartanov, Riccardo Fellini, King Harald V and Nina Simone
ranked #12 on Premiere's 2006 "Power 50" list along with DreamWorks co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg. They had ranked #12 in 2005 as well.
A supporter of Leonard Peltier, whom he believes was wrongly convicted of the 1975 murders of two FBI agents, he said he became disillusioned by Bill Clinton's decision to pardon financier Marc Rich, instead of Peltier. This caused a rift between him and the Clintons, and led to his decision to endorse Barack Obama for president, instead of Hillary Rodham Clinton.
In 2006, he donated $1.6 million to the David Geffen Foundation.
