The Rise and Rise of David Geffen

In 1976, at age 33, David Geffen faced a serious challenge. He'd just lost his job as vice chairman of the Warner Brothers film studio. Six years earlier, he had founded Asylum Records and brought out albums by Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, and the Eagles, but those glory days, his critics now believed, were behind him. According to them, the skinny, outspoken, curly-haired Brooklyn native wasn't much more than a common hustler.Undeterred, Geffen founded Geffen Records in 1980. By 1990, he owned the best independent record label in America and had become a successful producer of Broadway plays (Cats and M. Butterfly) and hit films (Risky Business and Beetlejuice). When he sold Geffen Records to MCA, in March 1990, he earned $710 million, and was now touted as the first self-made billionaire in Hollywood history. Yet just as he was experiencing his greatest business achievements, he was being attacked bitterly for "dishonesty". For years he had described himself as bisexual,but now gay activists demanded that he step forward and declare his homosexuality to the world. After an excruciating public battle, they got their wish.Late in 1994, when it looked as if he would again slip into retirement, Geffen, Steven Spielberg, and Jeffrey Katzenberg announced they were building the first new film studio in Hollywood in sixty years -- at a cost of $8 billion. The ever-unpredictable Geffen was back in the entertainment business once more.In The Rise and Rise of David Geffen, the first full-length portrait of Geffen, the reader will take a remarkable journey through the billionaire's difficult youth, through Asylum Records and Studio 54, and through Geffen Records andHollywood's power wars. But more than a business story, this book is a personal adventure… (more)