A Little Kid with Big Dreams
Geffen grew up in blue-collar Brooklyn. He was the skinny kid with big dreams of money, fame, and power. He was 17 when his father (who cut patterns) died, leaving him with his mother, who sold girdles, was his No. 1 fan, and called him “King David.” He visited Los Angeles for the first time in 1961, staying with his brother Mitchell, then a student at UCLA.
Photo by Frank Edwards / Archive Photos / Getty Images
“From the day I arrived,” he recalled, “California seemed like an enchanted land.” In 1964, however, he was still in New York, working a mail room job at the William Morris talent agency. He lied about having UCLA references of his own and steamed open a letter from the college denying that he had ever studied there.