Description: Complex, contentious, and blessed with the ability to find the next big talent, David Geffen has left his mark on American popular culture. This book is a traditional biography, but it is also a business success story, chronicling how the self-educated Brooklyn boy, son of a brassiere maker, rose to become one of the richest men in America.

Geffen built his fortune, now estimated at $2.5 billion, principally in the music business. In the 1970's his Asylum Records was home to the Eagles, Jackson Browne, Joni Mitchell, Linda Ronstadt. In the 1980's Geffen records became the most successful independent record label in history, thanks to bands like Guns n' Roses, Nirvana, and Aerosmith. He also backed Cats on Broadway, produced Risky Business, and partnered with Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg to build DreamWorks SKG, the first new movie studio in 55 years. The trio will soon break ground on a state-of-the-art studio site and backlot, which will lend a dramatic ending to the book. Geffen's incredible success story features a famous supporting cast, including such figures as Madonna, Michael Jackson, and Bill and Hillary Clinton, to whom Geffen is a close friend and campaign donor.

Tom King spotlights Geffen's towering professional achievements, and shows how he, as the master manipulator, conquered Hollywood. The book will also chronicle his remarkable personal journey, one in which he redefined the way business is done in the late 20th century. In some ways, he was the first public billionaire, so public as to bravely tell the world in 1992 that he was homosexual. King will candidly relate not just the story of Geffen's 1970s liasons with celebrated women such as Cher and MarloThomas, but also his later relationships with men.

Geffen's rise to glory was not without bumps -- on his way to the top, he suffered humiliating defeats, emotional personal dramas, and feuds with business partners and friends. But through it all he struggled to better himself through self-help therapies and courses. Grounded in revealing interviews with its subject and those who know him best, this truly is an untold tale.

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