- A supporter of Leonard Peltier, whom he believes was wrongly convicted of the 1975 murders of two FBI agents, he said he became disillusioned by Bill Clinton's decision to pardon financier Marc Rich, instead of Peltier. This caused a rift between him and the Clintons, and led to his decision to endorse Barack Obama for president, instead of Hillary Clinton.
- In 2005 he lost a California civil suit, forcing him to grant right-of-way to public sunbathers on the beach of his private home in Carbon Beach, California.
- Co-founder with Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg of DreamWorks SKG.
- In 1980 he signed John Lennon to what would prove to be the latter's last recording contract.
- Co-founded Asylum Records in 1971.
- Dated Marlo Thomas and Cher long before he publicly came out as gay.
- Announced a $200-million donation to UCLA medical school in May 2002, the largest single donation to a US medical school in history. The school will be named The David Geffen School of Medicine. The campus already includes The Geffen Playhouse. which was named after him when he donated $6 million to the university. He has also bestowed gifts of $2.5 million to Los Angeles' AIDS Project, as well as another $2.5 million to New York city's Gay Men's Health Crisis, and $1.4 million to AIDS Action in Washington, DC.
- Ranked #12 on Premiere's 2006 "Power 50" list along with DreamWorks co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg. They had ranked #12 in 2005 as well.
- UCLA announced in December 2012 that this 'visionary donor'/ philanthropist had also established a $100-million scholarship fund for students of the Geffen School of Medicine.
- Sits on USC School of Cinema-Television's Board of Councilors
- In 2006, he donated $1.6 million to the David Geffen Foundation.
- David Geffen has been nominated for five Tony Awards, winning three: 1983 for "Cats"(Best Musical); 1988 for "M. Butterfly"(Best Play); and 2022 for "The Lehman Trilogy"(Best Play). His other nominations: 1982 for "Master Harold...and the Boys"(Best Play), and 2022 for "The Music Man"(Best Revival of a Musical).
- Of Polish-Jewish and Ukrainian-Jewish descent.
- According to the Arizona Republic newspaper of August 22, 2014, two days of filming The Explosive Generation (1961) occurred at Mesa High School in Mesa, Arizona. About 350 students got to play extras in the film. A 17-year-old Geffen made his Hollywood debut as one of these extras.
- His brother, Mitchell, was married to the sister of Phil Spector's first wife, Annette.
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