David Lawrence Geffen (born February 21, 1943)[1] is an American film producer, record executive, and media proprietor.

[4] His older brother Mitchell (born Mischa) Geffen (1933–2006) was an attorney who attended UCLA Law School and later settled in Encino, California.

[7] 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.

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).

[8] At this time he also started working as a personal manager and was immediately successful with Laura Nyro and Crosby, Stills and Nash.

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.

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 JD Souther.

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.

[16] 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.

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, the Simpsons, Lifehouse, Tyketto, Pat Metheny, Sloan, the Stone Roses and Neil Young.

After years of low sales and profits, Geffen laid off or vacated 110 workers,[25] but later recovered under Interscope's supervision, which at the time, was under leadership of Jimmy Iovine.

In 2015, Geffen pledged $100 million toward renovation of what was then called the Avery Fisher Hall, part of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York.

This gift allowed the drama school to eliminate tuition for all students enrolled in master’s, doctoral, and certificate programs.

[56] After Ellison ordered a new and more compact 91 metres (299 ft) yacht, he sold his remaining half share in Rising Sun to Geffen in 2010.

[57] In 2009, Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich agreed to a divorce settlement with his wife Irina that resulted in her taking ownership of the 115-metre (377 ft) yacht Pelorus.

[65] Geffen is a keen collector of American artists' work, including Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Willem de Kooning.

"[66] In October 2006, Geffen sold two paintings by Jasper Johns and a De Kooning from his collection for a combined sum of $143.5 million.

[69] Wealth-X reported in June 2013 that Geffen owns the most valuable private art collection in the world, and estimated its worth at $1.1B at the time.

[71] Geffen is a donor to Democratic Party candidates and organizations, and was an early financial supporter of President Bill Clinton.

[72] Along with other Hollywood figures including Steven Spielberg and Brad Pitt, Geffen donated to oppose Proposition 8 in the November 2008 election.

[77] 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.

[84] 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.

[85][86] 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.

The track "Putting It Together" features Geffen, Sydney Pollack, and Ken Sylk portraying the voices of record company executives talking to Streisand.

He is also a featured character in Mailroom: Hollywood History From The Bottom Up by David Rensen, in Mansion On The Hill by Fred Goodman, in Hotel California by Barney Hoskyns, and in several books about Michael Ovitz.

[7] In the first series of The West Wing, the actor Bob Balaban played a character reported to be a thinly-veiled version of Geffen, as he pressured a sitting President to come out more strongly for Gay rights in America.