The rise and rise of David Geffen1997

In 1976, at age thirty-three, David Geffen was faced with 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 four years later. Ten years later, 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 of 1990, he earned $710 million and was touted as the first self-made billionaire in Hollywood history. But just as he was experiencing his greatest business achievements, he was faced with another serious challenge - he was being attacked bitterly for "dishonesty." For years he had described himself as bisexual, but now gay activists demanded that he step forward as a gay man, donate more of his millions to AIDS research, 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 might 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, with some people proclaiming that this time he would fail.