David Geffen

David 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 Mandatory Palestine and then moved to the United States.

David Lawrence Geffen (born February 21, 1943) is an American filmmaker, record executive, and entrepreneur.

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.

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 and 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.

Later in the 1970s Geffen left Asylum, which was later acquired by Atlantic's parent company, Warner Communications, and merged with Elektra Records in 1972 to become Elektra/Asylum Records.

He co-created Asylum Records in 1971 with Elliot Roberts, Geffen Records in 1980, DGC Records in 1990, and DreamWorks SKG in 1994.

Geffen co-founded Asylum Records in 1971 with Elliot Roberts after Geffen was unable to get Jackson Browne a record deal anywhere else.

The name Asylum was chosen because of the owners' reputations for signing artists who would struggle to find a record company that would contract with them.

The label was distributed by Atlantic Records at this time.

Asylum became a generator of the Southern California folk-rock sound and signed artists such as Eagles, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Linda Ronstadt, Warren Zevon, Judee Sill, and J.D. Souther.

Geffen remained in charge until December 1975, when he went to work as vice chairman of Warner Bros. film studios.

He then retired and in 1977 was informed (erroneously) that he had cancer.

During his retirement period he spent a short time (the fall of 1978 and spring of 1979) teaching a noncredit seminar on the music industry and arts management at Yale University, where he featured classroom guests Jackson Browne and Paul Simon.

Casablanca countered by releasing more singles off her 1979 Bad Girls album such as the song Walk Away and a similarly named hits compilation to compete, but by then New Wave sound was dominating the airwaves.

In 1980 a new medical diagnosis revealed the error in the original diagnosis and Geffen was given a clean bill of health, whereupon he decided to return to working in the entertainment industry.

In 1980, he founded Geffen Records and recruited Warner Bros. Records executive Ed Rosenblatt as president.

The Geffen label's meteoric rise to prominence within the year proved a bittersweet success.

Geffen's first artist to sign on was Donna Summer, who was anxious to leave Casablanca/PolyGram Records.

Geffen shortly after released her The Wanderer album, the lead single of which reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100, and the album certified gold.

The November 1980 release of John Lennon's album Double Fantasy seems an impressive feat for a new label, but at the time Lennon stated that Geffen was the only one with enough confidence in him to agree to a deal without hearing the record first.

Yoko Ono, Lennon's wife and partner, stated that Geffen was the only label head to pay attention to her.

In December 1980, Lennon was murdered and Double Fantasy became a massive seller.

Over the years Geffen Records/DGC has released recordings by artists including Olivia Newton-John, Asia, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Elton John, Cher, Sonic Youth, Aerosmith, Whitesnake, XTC, Peter Gabriel, Weezer, Lone Justice, Blink-182, Guns N' Roses, Nirvana, Lifehouse, Tyketto, Pat Metheny, Sloan, the Stone Roses and Neil Young.

The label was revived in 2004 as an urban music operation, signing hip-hop artists such as Waka Flocka Flame, Cam’ron, Gucci Mane, Paul Wall, Mike Jones and Bun B.