David Geffen

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David Lawrence Geffen (born February 21, 1943) is a record executive, film producer, and theatrical producer, and philanthropist. Geffen is most noted for creating Geffen Records in 1980, and being one of the three founders of Dreamworks SKG.

Born in New York, 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. Soon after leaving William Morris, Geffen founded Asylum Records in 1971, which had signed artists such as Jackson Browne 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.

In 1980, he founded Geffen Records. After releasing John Lennon's album Double Fantasy in December of that year (because, Lennon said, Geffen Records was the only label with enough confidence in him to agree to a deal without hearing the record first), Geffen found themselves with a massive seller, albeit in tragic circumstances, when Lennon was murdered later that month. This helped bring the new label a mass of attention. Geffen Records/DGC became well known also for releasing works by the likes of Cher, Aerosmith, Guns N' Roses, Nirvana, Neil Young, and Weezer.

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

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.

Geffen is a prominent philanthropist, renowned for his support to medical research, AIDS organizations, the arts and theatre.

According to Forbes Magazine ("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.

Geffen is a keen collector of American artists' work, including Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Willem de Kooning. In October 2006 he sold two paintings by Jasper Johns and a de Kooning from his collection for a combined sum of $143.5m. This prompted speculation that he was storing up resources for a bid to buy the Los Angeles Times newspaper.

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."<ref>Leeds, Jeff. "Microsoft Strikes Deal for Music", New York Times, 2006-11-09. Retrieved on 2006-11-14.</ref>

On November 3 2006, the New York Times reported that Geffen had sold Pollock's 1948 painting No. 5, 1948 from his collection for a world record price of $140m (£73.35m) to a secretive Mexican financier David Martinez. Martinez is the founder of London-based Fintech Advisory Ltd, a financial house that specializes in buying Third World debt.

If the report is correct, No. 5, 1948 is now the most expensive work of art ever sold (outstripping the $134m paid in October 2006 for Gustav Klimt's portrait Adele Bloch-Bauer I by cosmetics heir Ronald Lauder).