60 minutes rewind in this era of bell tightening it's kind of refreshing to take a look at people
whose happiest pastime is to give money away such a man is 77 year old eli broad
a self-made billionaire art collector and for the past 10 years one of the most consistently
generous philanthropists in america supporting education reform medical research and the arts
who also wants to transform that sprawling monster of a city los angeles
into a cultural capital eli broad thinks big but his critics say he can act very small
that he may give billions away but he tries to micromanage almost every dollar he gives eli bro
doesn't really care what they say all he wants to do is die poor well relatively poor
i believe in two things one andrew carnegie said he who does with wealth dies in shame
and someone said he who gives while he lives also knows where it goes
there's no one quite so civic-minded in america eli broad and his wife edie have become paparazzi
pets because of the money they lavish on los angeles so far more than half a billion dollars
who says money can't buy your love right here please to hold his footprint on los angeles
he's a driving force behind 16 major public institutions in the center of downtown
a cultural corridor anchored by the magnificent disney hall home of the los angeles philharmonic
next to it the home of the los angeles opera the museum of contemporary art the high school for the
performing arts and the school of music in greater los angeles three scientific research centers a
theater an art center and another contemporary art museum he puts his name on almost all of them
you've said that your sense of being a wealthy man actually increased the more you gave money away
i think it's true i don't feel i'm here to just maintain a status quo i'm here to make things
better or different and you want the world to know about it by putting your name and all the things
you do support i don't keep it a secret that's for sure brode took us to grand avenue this is
quite a vista which he plans to transform into a vibrant city center rivaling new york's museum
mile disney hall designed by frank gehry almost did not get built brode rescued the project by
putting up his own money and putting the squeeze on fellow plutocrats it's really become the symbol
of our city and then there's his own museum the broad this is a rendering it's still a parking lot
but it will eventually hold his 1.6 billion dollar art collection how much is is this going to cost
something approaching a billion dollars more more more we were interrupted by an angelino
driving by the dodgers eli by the dodgers you could be the george steinbrenner of los angeles
i've got enough on my plate brode runs his philanthropic foundation like a for-profit
business not a charity charity he says is just writing checks he practices what he calls venture
philanthropy we don't give it away we invest it and we want to return remember i started work
as a cpa so that gave me fiscal discipline and everything i did in business i guess some of it
carries over to philanthropy eli broad says i want results and if you're not going to show me
results i'm not going to give you the money and incidentally after one year if you don't show me
results i'm going to stop funding you new york mayor michael bloomberg no mean philanthropist
himself admires broad's uncuddly approach and the 32 million dollars he's given to new york schools
eli broad sets the standard i think it's really being a role model for others and they look at eli
and because of him they get the ideas i'm going to be innovative and be philanthropic and and do some
other things the leverage of eli broad is really quite amazing amazing to the extent of almost half
a billion dollars he's put into improving public education he spends even more on medical research
eight years ago he teamed up with harvard and mit to create you guessed it the broad institute
in cambridge massachusetts the road is the world's leading genomic medicine institute all discoveries
are free available to anyone let me be rude and ask how much have you put into this institute
600 million dollars total broad grew up in detroit the only child of immigrant shopkeepers at 21 he
married edie lawson we borrowed twenty five thousand dollars from our parents
and that twenty five thousand led ultimately to a lot of money in 1957 broden the partner launched
a no-frills home building business he was a millionaire by 27. he bought sun life insurance
in 1971 and sold it in 1999 for 18 billion dollars and that's when he and edie decided
to give most of it away you're giving 75 percent of your wealth away maybe more by the time it's
over or maybe more you have two children yes what about them they're well taken care of
they're different than their dad different how they don't have frankly the the the ambition to
build a great business that i had you've been open about admitting that you were not a great father
look when i started it was 24 7 as they say and i didn't spend enough time with the kids
when they were growing up i admit that is that something you regret now i do to some degree
we all go back and we do things over differently in our lives the story will continue after this
today bro balances his life with his passion for contemporary art like this richard serra sculpture
civilizations are not remembered by their business people or bankers or lawyers they're remembered by
the arts he's collected over 2000 works of art unlike most collectors almost all of broad's art
is available for loan to museums he loaned these pieces to the la county museum of art
and threw in a 50 million dollar building to house them one of his favorite artists is
the irrepressible jeff coons and here a veritable cornucopia of kunsan genius all of course painted
and sculpted by hired craftsmen kurds is nothing if not worshipful of eli bros you know morley and
eli i just have to say uh standing here what a fantastic location i mean look at the the natural
light that's coming in on these works it's just a tremendous gallery and the balloon dog what does
it do to you do you get some kind of emotional care i do it makes me smile makes me feel good
it makes me proud it especially makes me proud when i see young people and others looking at
the work and it introduces them the art in a way that no other work really does and a piece
that quite honestly mystifies me michael jackson and chimp is it michael jackson bubbles
when i made this series the banality series a banality of images i was trying to communicate to
people that whatever you respond to it's perfect if you find code's art speak incomprehensible
we'll just wait these are to make references to be in the womb a little bit before birth and uh prior
to any kind of concept of death do you totally get what he's talking about not to the extent that
jeff does but but i i do i do listen understand and learn from artists especially jeff but not all
artists are as respectful as jeff coons take architect frank gehry eli's a control freak
i worked on a house for him i didn't want to do it why didn't you want to do it i just told him
i didn't like him he said you'll learn to like me road fired gary then built the house anyway using
gary's drawings after two years in seven different models i was impatient i think he wanted to spend
another year or two designing it i said frank a work of art has never finished it's only abandoned
they worked together again three years later to build disney hall and once again broad fired gary
but he had to eat humble pie when the disney family insisted that he hire gary back we did
it we built it we weren't friends you've made your piece with him at the same time you i won't do a
project for him that's true eli's middle name is strings attached eli strings attached broad
christopher knight the art clinic for the los angeles times has been broad watching for years he
is a first generation male self-made gazillionaire and people in that category typically
believe and with good evidence that they know how to make something a success and that can
be a problem with science brod leaves the details to the experts but when he dangles his money and
his art in front of most major museums in la he sees himself as the expert and if they don't play
he won't pay well i'm a perfectionist and on things i know something about i do get involved
we've talked to a number of people who say that you can turn into a bully i don't think i'm a
bully but on the other hand i'm not a potted plant either no i'm sure you're not a part of the plant
but these people who say some pretty unkind things about you will not talk publicly they clearly are
scared of you i don't know why they're scared of me well because you're a rich guy
and therefore a powerful guy and you've got a temper i've got some strong views on things
but even your good friend frank gehry says eli can be a real pain in the ass
i can understand why frank could say that because i am impatient and patience has its limits
number one it's his money and you don't have to take it so i'm sympathetic with that
eli is not a micromanager as much as he has ideas on how you can make society better
and he's devoting his own money to doing it kind of hard to argue with that he doesn't have the
right to do it and you don't have to play the game if you don't want to when you've got one
800 pound gorilla in the room you're scared to death of the guy everybody does want something
from eli and since he is the biggest game in town nobody wants to alienate him i just appreciate you
all so much just watch this crowd of the recent gala for the los angeles museum of contemporary
art which broad bailed out two years ago for 30 million dollars it was a scrum of culture vultures
fashion victims and art victims dealers and collectors a night when skinniness was next only
to godliness when philanthropy and social climbing self-aggrandizement and greed dissolved into one
gigantic air kiss all under the benevolent eye of that feared and admired dictator eli brode
beyond the altruistic part of it ego plays a part in this oh absolutely a desire to be loved a
desire to be respected i'm not doing these things to become the most popular person in the city
i want to be the most respected person we left him on the roof of his art foundation
this fully contented man this master of all he surveys what's this at the very end here
i know what this is what is it it's bigfoot
it is bigfoot and who is the biggest foot in los angeles right now i don't know i don't think so