David Geffen

David Lawrence Geffen ( born February 21, 1943 in New York City, New York) is an American music, film producer and philanthropist. His fortune was given in March 2011 by Forbes magazine with 5.1 billion U.S. dollars and it is thus ranked 200 of the richest people in the world.

Life

David Geffen is a son of Israeli immigrants. At a young age he broke off to study at the University of Texas at Austin. His career in entertainment began in the mailroom of the William Morris Agency, the most important talent agency in Hollywood. 1967/68 he took as one of its first stars Laura Nyro under contract, and soon after, he became an agent and promoter of Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, The Eagles and other artists.

He moved to Warner Bros. for the time being and then it was in 1972 his own record label Asylum Records, and after which generate profitable sales in 1975, Geffen Records, which took artists such as Cher, Aerosmith, Asia, Guns N 'Roses as well as John Lennon under contract. In the 1980s, Neil Young signed with Geffen; This secured him too far-reaching artistic freedom, which had been in all his flair for business success from an early age a trademark Geffen. Neil Young then produced his most experimental, but the least commercially successful ( but critically acclaimed ) albums - much to the displeasure of Geffen. Neil Young finally returned to Reprise Records. Even Nirvana produced some of their songs on the label of Geffen.

In 1994, Geffen, together with Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg the film studio DreamWorks SKG.

David Geffen is openly homosexual and a prominent philanthropist, known for his support of medical research, AIDS organizations, artists and theater.

According to an article by Forbes magazine ( "The 400 Richest Americans of 2004" ), according to Geffen vowed that he would make all the money he earned, now get to charitable institutions. In 2002, he announced a prize of 200 million U.S. dollars donation to the UCLA Medical School.

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