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David Furnish
Furnish in 2024
Born	David James Furnish (1962-10-25) 25 October 1962 (age 62) Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Education	Sir John A. Macdonald Collegiate Institute (1981) University of Western Ontario (1985)
Occupation(s)	Filmmaker, producer, director
Years active	1997–present
Spouse	Elton John ​(m. 2014)​
Children	2

David James Furnish (born 25 October 1962) is a Canadian filmmaker and former advertising executive. He is the husband of English singer, pianist and composer Sir Elton John.

Early life and education

David Furnish was born in Toronto, Ontario at Women's College Hospital, the son of Gladys and Jack Furnish, a director at the Bristol-Myers pharmaceutical company. He has an older brother, John, and a younger brother, Peter. Furnish graduated from the Sir John A. Macdonald Collegiate Institute in 1981 and received an Honours Bachelor of Business Administration (HBA) from the Ivey Business School at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario in 1985.

Career

After graduation, he was recruited by the advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather Canada in Toronto. At 27, he asked his firm to transfer him to their UK principal offices in London. Furnish flourished in England, becoming the firm's youngest Director of Account Services.

Furnish is co-chief of Rocket Pictures along with his husband, Sir Elton John. Furnish serves on the board of the Elton John AIDS Foundation as chairman, attending fund raising events and other events in support of that cause.

Furnish is a contributing editor for Tatler magazine and also is a regular columnist for Interview and GQ.

In 2015, he was named one of GQ's 50 best dressed men in Britain.

In June 2019, to mark the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, Queerty named him, along with John, as one of the Pride50 "trailblazing individuals who actively ensure society remains moving towards equality, acceptance and dignity for all queer people".

Personal life

Furnish began a relationship with singer Elton John in 1993. John proposed to Furnish in May 2005 at a dinner party with friends and family at one of their homes in Old Windsor. Furnish and John entered into a civil partnership on 21 December 2005, the first day that civil partnerships could be performed in England, in the town of Windsor, Berkshire. Their first child, son Zachary Jackson Levon Furnish-John, was born on 25 December 2010 in California via surrogacy.

On 11 January 2013, the couple's second son, Elijah Joseph Daniel Furnish-John, was born through the same surrogate as their first. After same-sex marriage became legal in England and Wales in March 2014, Furnish and John retroactively converted their civil partnership into a marriage and marked the occasion with a ceremony in Windsor on 21 December 2014, the ninth anniversary of their civil partnership.

In 2016, Furnish sought an anonymised privacy injunction in the case PJS v News Group Newspapers Ltd.

Filmography

• Elton John: Tantrums & Tiaras; director (1997)
• Women Talking Dirty; producer (1999)
• Desert Flower; co-producer (1999)
• Kofi Annan: Center of the Storm; executive producer (2002)
• Fame and Fashion: Inside Gucci – Sex and Fashion; director, script writer (2002)
• Fame and Fashion: Inside Versace – Fame and Fashion; director, script writer (2002)
• It's a Boy Girl Thing; producer (2006)
• Pride and Predator; producer (announced 2009)
• Gnomeo & Juliet; producer (2011)
• Billy Elliot the Musical Live; executive producer (2014)
• Virtuoso; executive producer (2015)
• Sherlock Gnomes; producer (2018)
• Rocketman; producer (2019)
• Elton John: Never Too Late, director (2024)

Television

• Spectacle: Elvis Costello with...; producer (2008)

Theatre

• Billy Elliot the Musical; executive producer (March 2005).

References

1. Talk Talk. "David Furnish bio at TalkTalk.co.uk". Retrieved 9 December 2011.
2. "Photos: Sir Elton John and David Furnish marry · PinkNews". Pinknews.co.uk. 21 December 2014. Retrieved 4 June 2018.
3. "Matt & Andrej Koymasky - Famous GLTB - David Furnish". andrejkoymasky.com. Retrieved 3 April 2023.
4. ^ "Pride grand marshal David Furnish reflects on growing up gay in a very different Toronto". Toronto Star. 26 June 2015. Retrieved 28 June 2015.
5. "50 Best Dressed Men in Britain 2015". GQ. 5 January 2015. Archived from the original on 7 January 2015.
6. "Queerty Pride50 2019 Honorees". Queerty. Retrieved 18 June 2019.
7. ^ "Elton John and David Furnish are dads". CNN. 28 December 2010. Archived from the original on 19 March 2011. Retrieved 7 October 2011.
8. "Special Announcement". 16 January 2013. Archived from the original on 20 January 2013. Retrieved 16 January 2013.
9. "Sir Elton John and David Furnish marry". BBC. 21 December 2014. Retrieved 21 December 2014.
10. "British papers can report Furnish's infidelity". The Straits Times. 20 April 2016.
11. Elton John: Tantrums & Tiaras, retrieved 10 June 2019
12. Elley, Derek (11 October 1999). "Women Talking Dirty". Variety. Retrieved 10 June 2019.
13. "In my view: Sex and Fashion: Inside Gucci". Manchester Evening News. 13 January 2013. Retrieved 12 July 2023.
14. "Inside Versace Fame and Fashion (2002)". BFI. Archived from the original on 11 April 2018. Retrieved 10 June 2019.
15. French, Philip (31 December 2006). "It's a Boy Girl Thing". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 10 June 2019.
16. Child, Ben (17 February 2009). "Pride and Predator to give Jane Austen an extreme makeover". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 10 June 2019.
17. "Gnomeo and Juliet: Exclusive interview with Elton John and David". The Independent. 9 February 2011. Retrieved 10 June 2019.
18. "David Furnish". Billy Elliot Tour. Retrieved 10 June 2019.
19. Wagmeister, Elizabeth (27 January 2015). "HBO Orders Musical Period Drama Pilot From Elton John & 'True Blood' Creator". Variety. Retrieved 10 June 2019.
20. "British Council Film: Sherlock Gnomes". film.britishcouncil.org. Retrieved 10 June 2019.
21. "David Furnish says Elton John biopic Rocketman is giving him 'sleepless nights'". Irish Independent. 22 February 2019. Retrieved 10 June 2019.
22. Stephen Daw, "Elton John’s New Documentary ‘Never Too Late’ to Debut at Toronto International Film Festival". Billboard, June 18, 2024.

External links

• David Furnish at IMDb

• 1962 births
• 20th-century Canadian LGBTQ people
• 21st-century Canadian businesspeople
• 21st-century Canadian LGBTQ people
• Businesspeople from London
• Businesspeople from Toronto
• Canadian expatriates in England
• Canadian gay men
• Canadian LGBTQ businesspeople
• Elton John
• Film directors from London
• Film directors from Toronto
• LGBTQ film producers
• Living people
• People named in the Pandora Papers
• Primetime Emmy Award winners
• University of Western Ontario alumni
• Canadian theatre managers and producers
• Canadian documentary film producers
• Canadian documentary film directors
• Canadian LGBTQ film directors