Hollywood lore has it that when David Geffen got his first job in the mail room at the William Morris talent agency in New York, he lied about having a university degree.

It was 1964 and a degree was one of the conditions of employment so Mr Geffen told his bosses he had studied at the University of California, Los Angeles. When a letter from UCLA arrived casting doubt on his claim, he intercepted it in the mailroom, steaming it open and substituting its contents with a forgery. It was a daring act and had he been caught he would have been fired. Yet the extent of his later achievements suggest that not even rejection from William Morris would have derailed his path to success.