Download or read book The Rise and Rise of David Geffen written by Stephen Singular and published by Birch Lane Press. This book was released on 1997 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book The Men Who Would Be King written by Nicole LaPorte and published by HMH. This book was released on 2010-05-04 with total page 517 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The definitive history of the studio” created by the larger-than-life team of Spielberg, Geffen, and Katzenberg (Los Angeles Times). For sixty years, since the birth of United Artists, the studio landscape was unchanged. Then came Hollywood’s Circus Maximus—created by director Steven Spielberg, billionaire David Geffen, and Jeffrey Katzenberg, who gave the world The Lion King—an entertainment empire called DreamWorks. Now Nicole LaPorte, who covered the company for Variety, goes behind the hype to reveal for the first time the delicious truth of what happened. Readers will feel they are part of the creative calamities of moviemaking as LaPorte’s fly-on-the-wall detail shows us Hollywood’s bizarre rules of business. We see the clashes between the often-otherworldly Spielberg’s troops and Katzenberg’s warriors, the debacles and disasters, but also the Oscar-winning triumphs, including Saving Private Ryan. We watch as the studio burns through billions of dollars, its rich owners get richer, and everybody else suffers. LaPorte displays Geffen, seducing investors like Microsoft’s Paul Allen, showing his steel against CAA’s Michael Ovitz, and staging fireworks during negotiations with Paramount and Disney. Here is a blockbuster behind-the-scenes Hollywood story—up close, glamorous, and gritty.
Download or read book The Outsider s Edge written by Brent D. Taylor and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2011-12-30 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The secret of extreme wealth creation The Outsider's Edge reveals the one common denominator the world's richest self-made people share. Studying the lives of 17 world-famous billionaires, author and researcher Brent Taylor discovered that their one shared experience is that of the outsider. From Bill Gates to Richard Branson to Warren Buffett, being different from their peers, and proud of it, has served as prime motivation for many of the world's most spectacularly successful people. Turning the conventional wisdom about wealth on its head, The Outsider's Edge reveals the true value and importance of being different. Brent Taylor (Australia) is a professional researcher who has worked for more than 20 years as a market researcher to government and corporations.
Download or read book The Operator written by Thomas R. King and published by Random House Digital, Inc.. This book was released on 2000 with total page 696 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Complex, contentious, and blessed with the perfect-pitch ability to find the next big talent, David Geffen has shaped American popular culture for the last three decades. His dazzling career has included the roles of power agent, record-industry mogul, Broadway producer, and billionaire Hollywood studio founder. From the beginning, though, Geffen's many accomplishments have been shadowed by the ruthless single-mindedness with which he has pursued fame, power, and money. InThe Operator, Tom King--the first writer to have been granted full access to Geffen and his circle of intimates--captures the real David Geffen and tells a great American story about success and the bargains made for it. The extent of Geffen's accomplishments is extraordinary. As a manager in the 1960s, he made the deal for Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young to appear at Woodstock. He discovered 1970s superstars Jackson Browne and the Eagles and masterminded Bob Dylan's famed 1974 tour; Joni Mitchell, Geffen's roommate for a time, memorialized him in her song "Free Man in Paris." He produced Risky Business, the movie that made Tom Cruise a star, and was the moneyman behind Cats, the longest-running musical in Broadway history. One of the most brilliant dealmakers ever to work in Hollywood, he became a billionaire shortly after selling Geffen Records in 1990, and he made movie history when he founded, with friends Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg, DreamWorks SKG, the first new Hollywood studio in fifty-five years. And Geffen's influence has extended far beyond show business and into the worlds of Wall Street, art, real estate, and politics. Geffen's personal journey is as compelling as his business machinations. Although he knew from an early age that he was gay, he hid his true sexual urges and for years attempted to lead a heterosexual life. In the mid-1970s, he dated--and almost married--Cher. Not until 1992, when being honored for his extraordinary financial contributions to the fight against AIDS, did he open the closet door. His coming-out was national news. Beneath this phenomenal life story has always been a ferocious drive to succeed, a blind ambition that has left onlookers astounded. Geffen learned from his earliest days in the William Morris mailroom that he could cheat and lie his way to the top, and he has ever after lived unconstrained by traditional notions of right and wrong. Geffen has demonstrated time and again that he is willing to sabotage any relationship, business or personal, to get what he wants. At his best, David Geffen is a fiercely devoted friend and a bountifully generous man, both privately and publicly. At his worst, he is a vindictive bully who lashes out at loved ones and colleagues with irrational screaming fits that leave his victims shaking and sweating. And though he has periodically attempted to better himself through psychotherapy and self-help programs like est and Lifespring, he seems always able to find new enemies to rage against. For years, David Geffen has managed his own life story and rewritten history. But in The Operator, Tom King has set the record straight. Written with Geffen's cooperation--though not his authorization--The Operatoris an explosive, illusion-shattering story that details the mogul's indisputable contributions to entertainment history while also baring the man behind the legend.
Download or read book When Men Become Gods written by Stephen Singular and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2009-07-07 with total page 438 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In When Men Become Gods, New York Times bestselling author Stephen Singular casts a light on a dark corner of religious extremism. He reveals a group of fundamentalists operating in the present-day United States, where teenage girls are kept in virtual bondage in the name of upholding the "sacred principle" of polygamy. As the leader and self-proclaimed prophet of the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints, a sect of Mormonism based in isolated southern Utah, Warren Jeffs held sway over thousands of followers for nearly a decade. His rule was utterly tyrannical. In addition to coercing young girls into polygamous marriages with older men, Jeffs reputedly took scores of wives, many of whom were his father's widows. Television, radio, and newspapers were shunned, creating a hidden community where polygamy was prized above all else. But in 2007, after a two-year manhunt that landed him on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List, Jeffs's reign was forcefully ended. He was convicted of rape as an accomplice for his role in arranging a marriage between a fourteen-year-old girl and her nineteen-year-old first cousin. In When Men Become Gods, Edgar Award nominee Stephen Singular traces Jeffs's rise to power and the concerted effort that led to his downfall. It was a movement championed by law enforcement, private investigators, the Feds, and perhaps most vocal of all, a group of former polygamous wives seeking to liberate young women from the arranged marriages they'd once endured. The book offers new revelations into a nearly impenetrable enclave---a place of nineteenth-century attire, inbreeding, and eerie seclusion---providing readers with a rare glimpse into a tradition that's almost a century old, but that has only now been exposed.
Download or read book Rags to Riches written by Gail Liberman and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2010-12-21 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who wants to be a millionaire? Who doesnt? From magician to manufacturing magnate, fi nancial columnist to real estate investor, poet to college dropout, here are the profi les of 17 ordinary people who started with nothing-and became millionaires!These are stories of people who overcame poverty or in some cases middle class lifestyles to single-handedly beat overwhelming odds and achieved fi nancial success. They may not all be household names, but their stories can serve as an inspiration to us all. Praise for Rags to Riches: There are as many paths to fi nancial success as there are people who want to achieve it. This book shows that wealth is within the reach of just about anyone. -Tom Siedell, Managing Editor, Your Money The most extraordinary thing about Rags to Riches is that it affi rms how ordinary people have this tremendous, innate ability to achieve success and generate wealth if they put their minds to it. -John E Wasik, Author, Retire Early and Live the Life You Want Now Rags to Riches: Motivating Stories of How Ordinary People Achieved Extraordinary Wealth goes well beyond the quick-fi x guru guidebooks to explore effective, longterm strategies that systematically build wealth. Its fascinating, candid look at how every day, people reach their goals by turning challenge into opportunity.-Marla Brill, Publisher, Brills Mutual Funds Interactive www.brill.com A fascinating and instructive collection of biographies. -Evan Simonoff, Associated Publishedr/Editor-in-Chief, Financial Planning Now readers everywhere can discover what Palm Beach Daily News readers have learned: Gail Liberman and Alan Lavine know everything there is to know about personal wealth-how to get it and how to grow it. Gails weekly column in our paper tells affl uent readers how to manage their fortunes. This book takes a step back and tells readers, in the words of millionaires whove been there and done it, how to acquire a vast personal fortune. -Linda Rawls, Editor, Palm Beach Daily News Husband and wife Alan Lavine and Gail Liberman know money. They are syndicated fi nance columnists and authors based in North Palm Beach, Florida. Their joint columns run weekly in the Boston Herald, on America Online, and in numerous newspapers. They are frequent guests on radio and television as well as columnists for Fundsinteractive.com and Quiken.com. Alan and Gail are the authors of Love, Marriage & Money, as well as the bestseller, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Making Money with Mutual Funds.
Download or read book Angels in the American Theater written by Robert A Schanke and published by SIU Press. This book was released on 2007-03-07 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Angels in the American Theater: Patrons, Patronage, and Philanthropy examines the significant roles that theater patrons have played in shaping and developing theater in the United States. Because box office income rarely covers the cost of production, other sources are vital. Angels—financial investors and backers—have a tremendous impact on what happens on stage, often determining with the power and influence of their money what is conceived, produced, and performed. But in spite of their influence, very little has been written about these philanthropists. Composed of sixteen essays and fifteen illustrations, Angels in the American Theater explores not only how donors became angels but also their backgrounds, motivations, policies, limitations, support, and successes and failures. Subjects range from millionaires Otto Kahn and the Lewisohn sisters to foundation giants Ford, Rockefeller, Disney, and Clear Channel. The first book to focus on theater philanthropy, Angels in the American Theater employs both a historical and a chronological format and focuses on individual patrons, foundations, and corporations.
Download or read book The Queer Encyclopedia of Music Dance and Musical Theater written by Claude Summers and published by Cleis Press Start. This book was released on 2012-04-24 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Aficionados of music, dance, opera, and musical theater will relish this volume featuring over 200 articles showcasing composers, singers, musicians, dancers, and choreographers across eras and styles. Read about Hildegard of Bingen, whose Symphonia expressed both spiritual and physical desire for the Virgin Mary, and George Frideric Handel, who not only created roles for castrati but was behind the Venetian opera's preoccupations with gender ambiguity. Discover Alban Berg’s Lulu, opera’s first openly lesbian character. And don’t forget Kiss Me Kate, the hit 1948 Broadway musical: written by Cole Porter, married though openly gay; directed by John C. Wilson, Noël Coward's ex-lover; and featuring Harold Lang, who had affairs with Leonard Bernstein and Gore Vidal. No single volume has ever achieved the breadth of this scholarly yet eminently readable compendium. It includes overviews of genres as well as fascinating biographical entries on hundreds of figures such as Peter Tchaikovsky, Maurice Ravel, Sergei Diaghilev, Bessie Smith, Aaron Copland, Stephen Sondheim, Alvin Ailey, Rufus Wainwright, and Ani DiFranco.
Download or read book Hitmaker written by Tommy Mottola and published by Grand Central Publishing. This book was released on 2013-01-29 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Much has been written about Tommy Mottola, one of the most powerful, visionary, and successful executives in the history of the music industry. He discovered, developed and launched the careers of many superstars, including Mariah Carey, Celine Dion, Shakira, Jennifer Lopez and Gloria Estefan, and is credited with creating the "Latin Explosion." He has had the privilege of working alongside Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, Bob Dylan, Beyonce, Michael Jackson, Barbara Streisand, the Dixie Chicks, Pearl Jam, Aerosmith, Tony Bennett, and Ozzy Osbourne, amongst other music giants. This is his story--a story of the modern music industry, from Elvis to the iPod--through the eyes of the man who made much of it happen. Hitmaker recounts how a kid from the Bronx--and a college dropout--became one of the music industry's most creative and controversial CEOs. For the first time, Tommy lays bare the facts behind the most sensational aspects of his life, such as being married to and developing the career of Mariah Carey, managing Michael Jackson's emotional ups and downs, and the power struggle with his onetime boss and mentor Walter Yetnikoff. Hitmaker will take you inside this world of power, money, and fame as he recounts the fascinating dealings with countless icons, and what it was like to be at the top when the business suddenly changed. Tommy's story is one that will never be duplicated--and here it is, in his own voice, for the first time.
Download or read book OK2BG written by Jack Dunsmoor and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2015 with total page 611 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: OK2BG is narrative nonfiction, a Memoir about a guy who wants to be a Mentor preferably to a teenager, so they can have a decent & meaningful conversation about stuff & preferably with a kid at-risk, or just otherwise lost, in order to help both the teenager as well as the determined subject of this story realize their unique potential & find or reinforce their place in the world. Overall, a chronicle about the author’s attempt over several years to understand the question of ‘why do I want to be a Mentor’ which eventually helps him become a more insightful person. Subsequently in September, 2010 after a plague of teen suicides, Jack turns his attention to researching gay biographies into optimistically appropriate groups of books for gay kids at-risk, from bullying. After 5 years Jack has categorized 2,000+ books in the form of Memoirs, Biographies & Autobiographies written by or about 1,000+ allegedly gay men. The primary message in OK2BG is to read & reassess before you run asunder!
Download or read book Attack of the Monster Musical written by Adam Abraham and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-08-11 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How many hit musicals are based on films that were shot in two days at a budget of $30,000? The answer is one: Little Shop of Horrors. Roger Corman's monster movie opened in 1960, played the midnight circuit, and then disappeared from view. Two decades later, Little Shop of Horrors opened Off-Broadway and became a surprise success. Attack of the Monster Musical: A Cultural History of Little Shop of Horrors chronicles this unlikely phenomenon. The Faustian tale of Seymour and his man-eating plant transcended its humble origins to become a global phenomenon, launching a popular film adaptation and productions all around the world. This timely and authoritative book looks at the creation of the musical and its place in the contemporary musical theatre canon. Examining its afterlives and wider cultural context, the book asks the question why this unlikely combination of blood, annihilation, and catchy tunes has resonated with audiences from the 1980s to the present. At the core of this in-depth study is the collaboration between the show's creators, Howard Ashman and Alan Menken. Told through archival research and eyewitness accounts, this is the first book to make extensive use of Ashman's personal papers, offering a unique and inspiring study of one of musical theatre's greatest talents.
Download or read book Shadow on the Mountain written by Stephen Singular and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2016-03-22 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chronicles the life and subsequent murder of Nancy Pfister, Aspen royalty and heir to Buttermilk Mountain. When Nancy was found beaten to death in her own home, the her assistant and another couple close to her fell under suspicion for the gruesome murder. In the close-knit, wealthy town set on keeping its reputation and secrets safe from the public eye, the police struggled to solve the mystery of what really happened.
Download or read book Down the Highway written by Howard Sounes and published by Open Road + Grove/Atlantic. This book was released on 2011-05-24 with total page 460 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The acclaimed biography—now updated and revised. “Many writers have tried to probe [Dylan’s] life, but never has it been done so well, so captivatingly” (The Boston Globe). Howard Sounes’s Down the Highway broke news about Dylan’s fiercely guarded personal life and set the standard as the most comprehensive and riveting biography on Bob Dylan. Now this edition continues to document the iconic songwriter’s life through new interviews and reporting, covering the release of Dylan’s first #1 album since the seventies, recognition from the Pulitzer Prize jury for his influence on popular culture, and the publication of his bestselling memoir, giving full appreciation to his artistic achievements and profound significance. Candid and refreshing, Down the Highway is a sincere tribute to Dylan’s seminal place in postwar American cultural history, and remains an essential book for the millions of people who have enjoyed Dylan’s music over the years. “Irresistible . . . Finally puts Dylan the human being in the rocket’s red glare.” —Detroit Free Press
Download or read book Life in the Fast Lane written by Mick Wall and published by Diversion Books. This book was released on 2023-07-11 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Surely make you lose your mind…” So the Eagles warn us about the outrageous and ruthless lifestyle of the ambitious rock-n-roller. In fact, Don Henley could barely listen to the track “Life in the Fast Lane” when they were recording it. He was so high that it made him sick. The band that embodied the American dream with globe-straddling success, impossibly luxurious lives, and almost supernatural talent also descended into nightmare with bloodletting betrayal, hate-filled hubris, the skeletons of perceived enemies, brutally discarded lovers and former band mates left unburied in the road behind them. The Eagles’ story is a truly gothic American fable: one of ultimate power and rivers of money; of sex and drugs at a time when both were the lingua-franca of sophisticated So-Cal living; of a band who sang of peaceful easy feelings in public while threatening to kill each other in private. Now, legendary rock journalist Mick Wall delivers definitive insight into America's best-selling band of all time, a band that has sold more records than Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones combined, exploring their meteoric rise to fame and the hedonistic days of the 70s music scene in LA, when American music was taking over the world.
Download or read book Hotel California written by Barney Hoskyns and published by HarperCollins UK. This book was released on 2006 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tells the story of Los Angeles, from the dawn of the singer- songwriter era in the mid-Sixties to the peak of The Eagles' success in the late Seventies. This is a tale of songs and sunshine, drugs and denim, genius and greed, and is an account of the LA Canyons scene between 1967 and 1976.
Download or read book Cable Cowboy written by Mark Robichaux and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2002-10-31 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An inside look at a cable titan and his industry John Malone, hailed as one of the great unsung heroes of our age by some and reviled by others as a ruthless robber baron, is revealed as a bit of both in Cable Cowboy. For more than twenty-five years, Malone has dominated the cable television industry, shaping the world of entertainment and communications, first with his cable company TCI and later with Liberty Media. Written with Malone's unprecedented cooperation, the engaging narrative brings this controversial capitalist and businessman to life. Cable Cowboy is at once a penetrating portrait of Malone's complex persona, and a captivating history of the cable TV industry. Told in a lively style with exclusive details, the book shows how an unassuming copper strand started as a backwoods antenna service and became the digital nervous system of the U.S., an evolution that gave U.S. consumers the fastest route to the Internet. Cable Cowboy reveals the forces that propelled this pioneer to such great heights, and captures the immovable conviction and quicksilver mind that have defined John Malone throughout his career.
Download or read book The Mansion on the Hill written by Fred Goodman and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2003-07-03 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'The Mansion on the Hill' will disabuse you once and for all of the notion that rock 'n' roll was ever really about changing the world. It is absolutely essential read for any music aficionado whose curiosity is not satisfied by myth alone.
