He Didn’t Have the Looks, but He Had the Chutzpah
Geffen wasn’t any of those things – tall, good-looking, or athletic – but he had chutzpah. He figured he could beat anyone at the entertainment game. Once he earned the trust of an inner circle of artists, he would wage war on everyone else. According to screenwriter Carl Gottlieb, there are two schools of personal management.
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There’s the manipulative “Svengali school,” and there’s the nurturing protective manager who indulges the client’s “every whim and wish.” Geffen was the latter. But Geffen “never felt [he] was too protective.” He put it rather eloquently: “I felt I was functioning as a dam against the river of sh*t that comes pouring down on artists, and it was a job that I took very seriously.”