David Geffen

Early life

David Geffen was born in Borough Park, Brooklyn, New York City, to Abraham Geffen (1903–1961) and Batya Volovskaya (1909–1988). Geffen's mother owned a clothing store in Borough Park called Chic Corsets by Geffen. Both of his parents were Jewish immigrants who met in Mandatory Palestine and then moved to the United States. His older brother Mitchell (born Mischa) Geffen (1933–2006) was an attorney who attended UCLA Law School and later settled in Encino, California. Geffen graduated from Brooklyn's New Utrecht High School in 1960 with a "barely passing 66 average". He attended the University of Texas at Austin for a semester, and then Brooklyn College, before again dropping out. He then moved to Los Angeles, California to find his way in the entertainment business. He attended Santa Monica College (then known as Santa Monica City College) in Santa Monica, California, but soon left. Geffen attributed his challenges in school to dyslexia.

The fortune

In 1995, he donated $5 million towards UCLA's Westwood Playhouse. The theater was renamed the Geffen Playhouse. 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 which charities or the manner of his giving. In 2002, he announced a $200 million unrestricted endowment for the School of Medicine at UCLA. The School thereafter was named David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. On December 13, 2012, UCLA announced that Geffen had donated another $100 million in addition to his 2002 donation of $200 million, making him the largest individual benefactor for the UC system. The latest donation funds the full cost of attendance for up to 30 students per year, beginning with the Class of 2017. In 2015, Geffen pledged $100 million toward the renovation of what was then called the Avery Fisher Hall, part of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York. His gift, which amounted to about 20% of the hall's renovation costs, gave him naming rights in perpetuity over the building, now known as David Geffen Hall. In December 2020, Geffen pledged to donate $46 million to the UCLA medical school, which is named after him. In June 2021, Geffen gave $150 million to the Yale School of Drama. This gift allowed the drama school to eliminate tuition for all students enrolled in master's, doctoral, and certificate programs. The school was renamed the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University. In September 2021, Columbia Business School announced that David Geffen had made a gift of $75 million to support the school's new facilities in the Manhattanville neighborhood, north of Columbia's main campus. In recognition of his donation, the East Building was renamed David Geffen Hall when opened in 2022.

As of October 2023, Geffen has an estimated net worth of $9.1 billion, making him one of the richest people in the entertainment industry. In February 2020, Geffen sold his Beverly Hills estate to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos for $165 million, a price believed to be the highest ever paid for a home in a California real estate transaction. In June 2020, Geffen purchased Casey Wasserman's Beverly Hills estate for $68 million. In 2007, Geffen bought a half-share in friend Larry Ellison's luxury yacht Rising Sun, then at 138 meters (453 ft) the sixth largest motor yacht in the world. After Ellison ordered a new and more compact 91 meters (299 ft) yacht, he sold his remaining half share in Rising Sun to Geffen in 2010. In 2009, Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich agreed to a divorce settlement with his wife Irina that resulted in her taking ownership of the 115-meter (377 ft) yacht Pelorus. Approached on Geffen's behalf by broker Merle Wood, Irina sold Pelorus to Geffen in 2011 for $300 million. Later that year Geffen sold Pelorus to Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan for €214 million, significantly below its former price.

Career

After a brief appearance as an extra in the 1961 film The Explosive Generation, Geffen began his entertainment career in 1964 as a mailroom clerk at the William Morris Agency (WMA), where he quickly became a talent agent. He learned about showbiz politics while reading the memos he delivered between agents. In order to obtain the talent agent job, he had to prove he was a college graduate. As he later reported in an interview, he claimed in his job application at WMA that he had graduated from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). Because he worked in the mailroom, Geffen was able to intercept a letter from UCLA to WMA which stated that he had not graduated from UCLA. He modified the letter to show that he had attended and graduated, then submitted it to WMA. His colleagues in the mailroom included Elliot Roberts, who later became Geffen's partner at Asylum Records. In 1968, Geffen left WMA and became a talent agent for Ashley-Famous Agency. In 1969, he was executive vice president and talent agent for Creative Management Associates. At this time he also started working as a personal manager and was immediately successful with Laura Nyro and Crosby, Stills & Nash. When Geffen was engaged in the process of looking for a record deal for young Jackson Browne, Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun suggested that Geffen start his own record label.

Through the Geffen Film Company, Geffen produced dark-tinged comedies such as the remake of Little Shop of Horrors (1986), Risky Business (1983) and Beetlejuice (1988). 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. In 1995, DreamWorks signed a $100 million deal with ABC. In 2008, Geffen left DreamWorks.

Sanctions & controversy

Until 2017, Geffen owned a Malibu compound on Carbon Beach. In 1983, Geffen received permits from the California Coastal Commission to build a Cape Cod-style compound over multiple beachfront lots in exchange for creating a public pathway to the beach. He failed to build that pathway, and in 2002, filed a lawsuit to block public access altogether. After a protracted three-year legal battle, Geffen reached a settlement with the Coastal Commission, granting the public a nine-foot-wide easement to the beach and reimbursing the state and non-profit groups $300,000 in legal fees. The pathway was opened on May 30, 2005, to national and international media coverage. The controversy has been called the "most famous Malibu battle" for beach access. The Coastal Commission later contacted the state transportation department without receiving a response to ask if the curb cuts that prevented public parking were valid, amid rumors that Geffen had installed four fake garage doors. The house was later sold to Mark Walter, the principal owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, for $85 million. On March 9, 2022, The Wall Street Journal reported that Geffen, Barry Diller and Diller's stepson, Alex von Furstenberg, were being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the United States Department of Justice for insider trading of options on Activision Blizzard just three days before Microsoft's announced acquisition. Diller denied the allegations and said it was "simply a lucky bet". During the COVID-19 pandemic, Geffen drew backlash for posting on Instagram that he and a 45-member crew were self-isolating in the Grenadines on the Rising Sun. In 2021, Geffen was ranked the most polluting individual American and second most polluting individual in the world, largely due to his yachts.