Biography Highlights:
- Birth: February 21, 1943
- Birthplace: Brooklyn, New York
- Nationality: American
- Occupation: Media Proprietor, Record Executive, Film Producer, Philanthropist
| Occupation | Film Producer |
|---|---|
| Date of Birth | 21 February 1943 |
| Age | 82 Years |
| Birth Place | New York City, U.S. |
| Horoscope | Pisces |
| Country | U.S |
Height, Weight & Measurements
Unfortunately, specific information about David Geffen's height, weight, or body measurements is not readily available in public sources.
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 JD Souther. Later in the 1970s Geffen left Asylum, which was later acquired by Atlantic's parent company, Warner Communications, and merged with Elektra Records in 1982 to become Elektra/Asylum Records. 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.
| Height | |
| Weight | |
| Body Measurements | |
| Eye Color | |
| Hair Color |
Dating & Relationship Status
As of 2025, David Geffen is in the process of divorcing his husband, Donovan Michaels, whom he married in 2023. The couple did not have a prenuptial agreement, which could have significant implications for Geffen's financial situation. Previously, Geffen dated Cher briefly in the early 1970s, and they remained lifelong friends.
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 Mandatory Palestine and then moved to the United States. His older brother Mitchell (born Mischa) Geffen (1933–2006) was an attorney who attended UCLA Law School and later settled in Encino, California.
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, the Simpsons, Lifehouse, Tyketto, Pat Metheny, Sloan, the Stone Roses and Neil Young.
Geffen was initially defensive about his sexuality. During the 1970s he dated Cher and spent 18 months in a relationship with her. They began their relationship in 1973, while Cher was still married to Sonny Bono, but their marriage was already ending. Geffen helped Cher gain independence in her career, since she was dependent on Sonny for some business contracts that Geffen would later call "slave labor." In early 1974, Cher's divorce became public and was heavily covered by the media, and it was at this time that Cher and Geffen made their first appearance together, at the Grammy Awards ceremony. It was from this moment that Geffen became a media celebrity. Eventually, Cher left him for Gregg Allman. Geffen eventually came out as gay in 1992. In May 2007, Out magazine ranked Geffen first in its list of the 50 "Most Powerful Gay Men and Women in America". Geffen reportedly married 30-year-old former go-go dancer Donovan Michaels in 2023. In May 2025 it was reported that Geffen had filed for divorce and did not have a pre-nuptial agreement with Michaels.
In 2009, Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich agreed to a divorce settlement with his wife Irina that resulted in her taking ownership of the 115 m yacht Pelorus. Approached on Geffen's behalf by broker Merle Wood, Geffen bought Pelorus in 2011 for $300 million. Later that year Geffen sold Pelorus to Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan for €214 million, way below its former price.
Joni Mitchell and Geffen were close friends and, in the early 1970s, made a trip to Paris with Robbie Robertson and Robertson's wife, Dominique. As a result of that trip, Mitchell wrote "Free Man in Paris" about Geffen. Geffen can be heard on Barbra Streisand's The Broadway Album, released in 1985. The track "Putting It Together" features Geffen, Sydney Pollack, and Ken Sylk portraying the voices of record company executives talking to Streisand.
| Parents | |
| Husband | Donovan Michaels (m. 2023-2025) |
| Sibling | |
| Children |
Net Worth and Salary
David Geffen's net worth is estimated to be around $7.7 billion to $9 billion, depending on the source. His wealth primarily comes from successful ventures in the music industry, film production, and strategic investments in real estate and art.
Early Career
- William Morris Agency: Geffen began his career in the mailroom and quickly rose through the ranks by signing notable artists.
- Asylum Records: In 1970, he co-founded Asylum Records, which became a hub for singer-songwriters like Jackson Browne and Joni Mitchell.
David Lawrence Geffen (born February 21, 1943) is an American film producer, record executive, and media proprietor. In music, he co-founded Asylum Records with Elliot Roberts in 1971 before founding Geffen Records in 1980, DGC Records in 1990, and co-founding DreamWorks Records (with Mo Ostin, Michael Ostin and Lenny Waronker) in 1996. In film, he founded the Geffen Film Company in 1982 and co-founded DreamWorks SKG (with Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg) in 1994.
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.
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.
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. 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.
The label had been distributed by Warner Bros. Records since its inception, but in 1990 the label was sold to MCA Records with Geffen receiving shares in MCA worth $550 million. A year later, Matsushita Electric acquired MCA and paid Geffen $670 million. Geffen continued to run the label before leaving Geffen Records in 1995. In late 1996 after being sold to Seagram, MCA reincorporated into its subsidiary name, Universal Studios, Inc., while MCA Music Entertainment was renamed Universal Music Group. The Geffen label was restructured under the recently renamed company. On December 10, 1998, Seagram acquired PolyGram for $10.6 billion; the latter's music division was merged into UMG, thus, on New Year's Day 1999, Geffen Records was merged with its sister label, Interscope Records, and PolyGram subsidiary, A&M Records, to become Interscope Geffen A&M Records. Its division, DGC Records, would be absorbed into Geffen soon after, but Beck and Sonic Youth did not fulfill their contracts with the sublabel until 2003. After years of low sales and profits, Geffen laid off or vacated 110 workers, but later recovered under Interscope's supervision, which at the time, was under leadership of Jimmy Iovine. In 2003, Universal dissolved MCA Records and DreamWorks Records; MCA president Jay Boberg had resigned the prior spring while UMG (in October) acquired the latter label from Geffen's film label, DreamWorks Pictures, with rosters from both labels transitioning to Geffen Records. The acquisitions and later dissolutions of both imprints caused 120 staff layoffs, while some remained under Geffen; few went to work for its parent, Interscope.
Through the Geffen Film Company, Geffen produced dark-tinged comedies such as the remake of Little Shop of Horrors (1986), Risky Business (1983) and Beetlejuice (1988). Geffen was the Broadway backer for the musicals Dreamgirls and Cats. In 1994, Geffen co-founded the DreamWorks SKG studio with Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg. In 1995, DreamWorks signed a $100 million deal with ABC. In 2008, Geffen left DreamWorks.
In September 2021, Columbia Business School announced that David Geffen had made a gift of $75 million to support the school's new facilities in the Manhattanville neighborhood, north of Columbia's main campus. In recognition of his donation, the East Building will be renamed David Geffen Hall when opened in 2022.
In February 2020, Geffen sold his Beverly Hills estate to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos for $165 million, a price believed to be the highest ever paid for a home in a California real estate transaction. In June 2020, Geffen purchased Casey Wasserman's Beverly Hills estate for $68 million.
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. On November 3, 2006, The New York Times reported that Geffen had sold Pollock's 1948 painting No. 5, 1948 from his collection for $140 million (£73.35 million) to Mexican financier David Martinez. Martinez is the founder of London-based Fintech Advisory Ltd, a financial house that specializes in buying Third World debt. The sale made No. 5, 1948 the most expensive painting ever sold (outstripping the $134 million paid in October 2006 for Gustav Klimt's portrait Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, purchased by cosmetics heir Ronald Lauder).
In 2011, Geffen was awarded with the President's Merit Award for "indelible contributions to the music industry" from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences at the 53rd Grammy Awards.
Social Network
David Geffen is not typically active on mainstream social media platforms. However, his influence and involvement in the entertainment industry are well-documented through various media outlets and business publications.
In 2007, Geffen bought a half-share in friend Larry Ellison's luxury yacht Rising Sun, then at 138 m the sixth largest motor yacht in the world. After Ellison ordered a new and more compact 91 m yacht, he sold his remaining half share in Rising Sun to Geffen in 2010.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Geffen drew backlash for posting on Instagram that he and a 45-member crew were self-isolating in the Grenadines on the Rising Sun.
Geffen is a keen collector of American artists' work, including Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Willem de Kooning. According to the chief curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, Paul Schimmel: "There's no collection that has a better representation of post-war American art than David Geffen's."
Education
Details about Geffen's formal education are not extensively documented. His career ascent was largely due to his early start in the entertainment industry and his ability to identify and nurture talent.
According to Forbes ("The 400 Richest Americans of 2004") and other sources, Geffen has pledged to give whatever money he makes from now on to charity, although he has not specified which charities or the manner of his giving. In 2002, he announced a $200 million unrestricted endowment for the School of Medicine at UCLA. The School thereafter was named David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. On December 13, 2012, UCLA announced that Geffen had donated another $100 million in addition to his 2002 donation of $200 million, making him the largest individual benefactor for the UC system. The latest donation funds the full cost of attendance for up to 30 students per year, beginning with the Class of 2017.
In June 2021, Geffen gave $150 million to the Yale School of Drama. This gift allowed the drama school to eliminate tuition for all students enrolled in master's, doctoral, and certificate programs. The school was renamed the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University.
