David Lawrence Geffen (born February 21, 1943) is an American business magnate, producer, film studio executive, and philanthropist. Geffen created or co-created Asylum Records in 1970, Geffen Records in 1980, DGC Records in 1990, and DreamWorks SKG in 1994. His donations to the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and other educational and research donations have widened his fame beyond the entertainment industry.
Early life
David Lawrence Geffen was born in Borough Park, Brooklyn, New York, to Abraham Geffen 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 British-mandated Palestine and then moved to the United States. Geffen graduated from Brooklyn’s New Utrecht High School in 1960 with a 66 percent 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.
Business career
After a brief appearance as an extra in the 1961 film The Explosive Generation, Geffen began his entertainment career in the mailroom at the William Morris Agency (WMA), where he quickly became a talent agent. In order to obtain the WMA 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 in a management company. Geffen left William Morris to become a personal manager and was immediately successful with Laura Nyro and Crosby, Stills and Nash. When Geffen was engaged in the process of looking for a record deal for young Jackson Browne, Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegün suggested that Geffen start his own record label.
Source:wikipedia