When a reporter from the Wall Street Journal rang David Geffen, saying he was interested in writing his biography, Geffen's pride got the better of him. He enthusiastically agreed to co-operate, providing a list of family members, friends and colleagues who would help with the research. Geffen believed that because of the type of newspaper the reporter worked for, he would be focusing on how Geffen went from being an impoverished Jewish kid to one of the wealthiest men on the planet, thanks to his business involvement in the worlds of music, film and theatre. Big mistake.
The reporter, Tom King, was the Wall Street Journal's entertainment correspondent, based in Los Angeles - a place where the very mention of Geffen's name draws reactions from petrified silence to outright hatred, to obsequious adulation.
To call the self-styled "richest and most powerful man in Hollywood" a mere mogul would be a gross disservice - just take a brief look at the 57-year-old's CV: manager/ agent/promoter (at any given time) of Bob Dylan, Neil Young, The Doors, Joni Mitchell, Crosby Stills and Nash, Jackson Browne, The Eagles, Donna Summer, Elton John. Chief confidant and career-guidance officer to Michael Jackson and Calvin Klein. Owner of a record label that signed Guns 'N' Roses and Nirvana. The man a distraught Yoko Ono rang minutes after John Lennon was shot dead, begging him to be with her; similarly the person Courtney Love rang minutes after her husband's Kurt Cobain's suicide; the man George Michael turned to for help after being arrested in a public toilet; the person Hillary Clinton used as a shoulder to cry on when the Monica Lewisnky scandal broke and the man Bill Clinton uses, to this day, as a media spindoctor. Throw in his influence on Wall Street, in the art world, his engagement to Cher, his rumoured gay marriage to Keanu Reeves (an urban myth) and his current job as coowner of the giant, multi-media Dreamworks corporation (alongside Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg) and you're looking at a potentially explosive biography.
Tom King's door-stopping 600-page biography, called The Operator: David Geffen Builds, Buys and Sells The New Hollywood has already caused seizures in the US (where it's not published until next month), where it's being favourably/unfavourably (depending on your point of view) compared to Julia Phillips's You'll Never Eat Lunch In This Town Again - a devastating behind-the-scenes critique of the film industry; Frederic Dannen's Hit Men - an even more devastating critique of the music industry; and whatever is contained in "celebrity" prostitute Heidi Fleiss's diaries.
Geffen is reported to be livid about the book (and this from a man who can do livid in his sleep) and is currently using all his considerable weight to prevent the book being serialised in US papers and magazines. Half-way through its compilation, he suddenly withdrew his co-operation, telling King he wasn't writing a serious biography, merely a salacious tell-all book. As King found out to his surprise, it didn't matter whether Geffen co-operated or not: the people Geffen had instructed to speak to King, wouldn't - Geffen's approval could not overcome their fear of him. "Nobody's going to tell you anything really nasty about him because they are all afraid of him," said one Geffen source. People did though open up eventually, but even then many told King they'd "better lie down on a couch" in therapist style in order to conduct the interview. Carrie Fisher, a member of the Geffen inner circle, granted an interview, then immediately regretted it and chased King to the airport, telling him how panicked she was about what she had said.
Having read the book, their fears are understandable: Geffen is portrayed as an unspeakably rude, arrogant, selfish, sinister, mean-minded, bullying, lying and cheating person. He is also portrayed as being a loving, sharing, loyal, thoughtful and generous friend and colleague. In most cases, the pat analysis in such circumstances is that the truth lies somewhere between those two extremes. Not here.
David Lawrence Geffen was born in 1943 in New York, the second son of Jewish immigrants. He had a normal enough, working-class background but early on decided he was going to become a dentist - "because they made loads of money". Not gifted academically, he grades were not good enough for university, so he looked around for another vehicle to instant wealth. He found it in the burgeoning music scene and he eventually inveigled his way into a job in the postroom at the William Morris agency, then the largest talent agency in the world, by saying he was Phil Spector's cousin. King's biography holds that Geffen "soon tossed aside all notions of right and wrong and simply lived by different rules than did the rest of society around him: unconstrained by traditional or acceptable social behaviour, he used all the resources at his fingertips to achieve his lofty goals." Geffen moved swiftly through the ranks, found his first management job with the cult singer Laura Nyro and was soon signing up acts such as The Doors.
In the early 1970s, at the age of 23, he set up his own record company, Asylum Records. Musically, the "British invasion" of the Beatles, Stones, The Who and The Kinks had run its course in the US and was being quickly replaced with the "California sound" of Jackson Browne, The Eagles and Linda Rondstadt, all of whom Geffen attracted to his label. The massive success of these artists made Geffen a multi-millionaire at the age of 30 and set up him as the chief "operator" on the music scene. To many in the music industry, though, the only talent Geffen had was his ability to shout: "Geffen had realised his most powerful weapon was his voice," writes King. "He was a gifted screamer and he had learned quickly that he could scare people into giving him whatever he wanted. His rage was so formidable that it left some of his victims gasping for air." Although gay, he had a sexual relationship with Cher in the mid 1970s and the two were due to be married before Cher embarked on a number of affairs. Geffen had showered the singer/actress with hundreds of thousands of dollars-worth of jewellery and when the relationship ended, he rang her to ask for his gifts back. "Screw you, David," came the terse response.
Having sold Asylum Records for a massive profit, Geffen concentrated on becoming a movie mogul but a number of expensive flops soon softened his cough. He moved back into music and set up another label. Following advice from his friend Calvin Klein he decided to name it after himself - "you get laid more that way," said Klein. One of Geffen's big success stories was persuading John Lennon back into the musical fold with the release of his Double Fantasy album in 1980 - Geffen accomplished this, according to King, by pitching his deal to Yoko Ono and showing her the respect that Lennon believed she was due. When Yoko rang him shortly after John was shot, Geffen had to prise himself away from the male prostitute in his bedroom to get to the hospital - a story he took delight in retelling over the years. Geffen Records was an even bigger success than Asylum Records with acts such as Guns `N' Roses and Nirvana selling millions of copies. He sold the label in 1990 for $545 million dollars to concentrate again on the film world.
It is the wheeling and dealing aspects of the book (written after exhaustive research) that provide the most clues to Geffen's manically driven personality. The sheer, brute ignorance, threatening behaviour, amount of personal insults and temper tantrums from musicians, actors, producers and directors is a dramatic antidote to the caring/ sharing visage Hollywood likes to present.
It's mostly men behaving badly, and mostly fairly anonymous music and film executives, although Bob Dylan, Elton John, Paul Simon and Joni Mitchell won't exactly consider their reputations enhanced by the stories in this book. Although he partied long and hard with some of the biggest entertainment names of the 30 years, there's little evidence of in the way of lasting friendships. "David Geffen is a fragile and frightened soul," writes King. "The same emotional machinery that gave him his strength of conviction and purpose and won him great fortune and accomplishment was a clear obstacle when it came to issues such as friendship. When Geffen was hurt, the pain was so great that the only way for him to feel safe again was to throw a fit, instantaneously creating a protective distance between himself and others.
Once the negative energy was out of his system and the people around him had ducked for cover, Geffen could then consider whether he was unendangered and unscathed." Having conquered Hollywood, bought Jack Warner's house for $48 million and amassed an impressive collection of modern art, Geffen trained his "operator" talents on politics and was an early sponsor of Bill Clinton. Geffen's ability with the media (he was forever leaking stories to the press to his own advantage - that is, when he wasn't bullying them) greatly impressed Clinton and King credits Geffen as the scriptwriter of Clinton's "inappropriate sexual relations" speech to the nation during the Lewinsky affair. Whatever about being able to broker a deal, Geffen excels himself in the schmooze stakes, which is why George Michael turned to him after his lavatory bust - Geffen told to go on live TV immediately - and why Michael Jackson has being using him as a "creative consultant" for years.
Although, as King has it, a deeply unpleasant person in his business and social affairs, the reason so many pop stars, actors and politicians turn to Geffen is that not only can he call in favours from the great, the good and the fourth estate but also that he can use strong-arm tactics (and veiled threats) to get his way. An entertainment industry enforcer, by any other name. And what is politics but paid employment for drama-queens?
Balancing out such vile excesses, King details many examples of great personal kindness, and how Geffen has contributed millions of dollars of his own money to charitable causes - mainly HIV/AIDS related ones - although he can't help noting that "Geffen always made sure everyone knew how much money he was giving away".
Geffen is still a major player on the music/film scene thanks to his role in Dreamworks: the irony of this "expose" is that, ultimately, it can only contribute to the mythology of the man. Hollywood's reaction can only be: "That maybe David Geffen is a son of a bitch - but at least he's our son of a bitch'."
The Operator: David Geffen Builds, Buys and Sells the New Hollywood is published by Random House, price ?, on ?
