Dean Reed

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Dean Reed at Berlin-Schönefeld Airport , 1978

Dean Cyril Reed (born September 22, 1938 in Denver , Colorado , † June 13, 1986 in Zeuthen , Koenigs Wusterhausen district , GDR) was an American actor , singer , screenwriter and director . At the beginning of the 1960s he was considered a Latin American teenage idol. In 1966 he started a second career in the Soviet Union and from 1973 lived as a self-confessed socialist in the GDR .

Life

Beginnings in the USA

He was born to math and history teacher Cyril Reed and housewife Ruth Anna Brown and grew up on a chicken farm near Denver. He had two brothers, Vern (born November 13, 1943) and Dale (born June 7, 1935). At the age of twelve he learned to play the guitar. From 1956 to 1958 he studied meteorology at the University of Colorado , while on the side he performed hillbilly songs on vacation ranches in the Rocky Mountains . In clubs and regional radio stations, he was known as the Denver Kid .

After test recordings at the US record label Imperial Records , he broke off his studies in 1958 and moved to Los Angeles . Voyle Gilmore , head of Capitol Records , gave him a seven-year recording contract in 1959. The company wanted to develop him as a teen idol. Reed took acting classes with Paton Price , an outsider in the US film business (who later took on a small role in Reed's western comedy Sing, Cowboy, Sing ), and guest appearances on the CBS sitcom Bachelor Father with John Forsythe .

His rock'n'roll songs and ballads I Kissed a Queen , The Search , Our Summer Romance and Whirly Twirly had only moderate success in the USA, but much larger ones in Latin America. Reed was invited to the ABC music show American Bandstand , but his first single, The Search , was only 96th on the Billboard charts . In Argentina, however, it reached number one on the music charts .

Career in Latin America

Teen idol

Dean Reed in front of Elvis Presley, election result of a South American youth magazine, 1961

In 1961, Capitol Records sent Reed on a concert tour of Argentina, Chile , Brazil and Peru . He was received by 100,000 fans at the airport in Buenos Aires . The arrival in Santiago de Chile was broadcast live on the radio. Police deployed 58 officers to protect him from fans on the street. The tour was a triumphant success. In order to offer enough space for spectators, football stadiums had to be rented. Reed only came back to the US for a short time and then moved to Argentina.

In the same year he was more popular in Argentina and Chile than Elvis Presley , Paul Anka or Neil Sedaka . He produced eight singles and three record albums in Argentina, appeared as an actor in telenovelas , and shot his first feature film in Mexico in 1964 , Guadalajara en verano ( Guadalajara in summer ), a student's love story. In 1965, Argentine television started a weekly Dean Reed show on Saturdays .

politicization

The social inequality and mass poverty in Latin America politicized him. He gave free concerts in barrios , factories and prisons . This made him even more popular and earned him the nickname Mr. Simpatico . He met Chilean union leader, became friends with the writer Alfredo Varela on, traveled as Argentine delegate to the meeting of the leftist World Peace Congress to Helsinki and invited the USSR -Kosmonautin Valentina Tereshkova in his show one. He was then arrested by the political police. In March 1966, Che Guevara visited him at his home in Buenos Aires and discussed with him until dawn. After a coup in 1966, Reed was expelled from Argentina by decree by General Juan Carlos Onganías' regime for pro-communist activities . He went to Spain temporarily . His record deal with Capitol Records had expired. From now on he managed himself.

Career in the Soviet Union, Italy, GDR

Success in the USSR

In October 1966, Reed started a new career in the Soviet Union . He signed a contract with the state concert agency Goskonzert and toured the republics of the USSR for two months, giving 39 concerts in eight cities, including Moscow and Leningrad . In 1968 he recorded his first rock 'n' roll, country and folk album for the Soviet record label Melodija . This was followed by appearances in Mongolia in 1968 and tours of the USSR in the late summer of 1971 and July 1979. Reed was the first American and rock singer on Soviet stages, delighting Soviet teenagers with hip swing, twist and western show business . His appearance caused a traffic jam on Moscow's Mayakovsky Square. As in South America, he had more fans there than Elvis Presley. His six Soviet long-playing records and ten singles sold millions of copies. The US magazine People wrote in 1976 that he was the most famous American in Russia and Eastern Europe, alongside US President Gerald Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger .

Actor in Italy

In 1967 Reed moved to Italy, lived with his family in Rome . He got a film contract and played in twelve films in Cinecittà until 1973 , mainly in spaghetti westerns , including Adios, Sabata with Yul Brynner . He supported political campaigns, appeared at the head of an anti-Vietnam War demonstration in front of the US embassy in Rome in 1969, clenched his fist and shouted "Viva Ho Chi Minh " . In 1970 he supported the election campaign of the Unidad Popular and its top candidate Salvador Allende in Chile with concerts for four months . In a spectacular street action in September 1970 in front of the US consulate in Santiago he washed the US flag from the “dirt of imperialism”.

Center of life GDR

Single with the hit We say yes ... , 1972
Dean Reed at DOK Leipzig , 1976

In November 1971 he met his future wife, the model Wiebke Dorndeck, at the International Leipzig Documentary and Short Film Week for Cinema and TV , who was still married to the photographer Rainer Dorndeck at the time, and moved to the GDR in 1972. There he was courted as a world star and “singer of the other America”. On June 30, 1973 he married the now divorced Wiebke Dorndeck born in the town hall of Döbeln . Schmidt (born August 29, 1941). In 1975 their daughter Natasha was born, and in 1978 the couple divorced.

Within six years he made five films in the GDR. The best known were From the life of a good- for- nothing based on Joseph von Eichendorff , Kit & Co based on Jack London, and El Cantor , a film adaptation of the life of Víctor Jara . In 1979 he toured the GDR, the USSR and Czechoslovakia for several months and performed in Budapest in front of 70,000 spectators . Reed rented a waterfront property with a house and a motorboat in Rauchfangswerder, a district of Berlin-Schmöckwitz .

He saw himself as a US patriot and a Marxist at the same time . Behind his house he set up a flagpole with the US flag washed in Chile, invoking the American Revolution of 1776. In 1974 he performed in Berlin's Friedrichstadtpalast on the 25th anniversary of the pioneering organization Ernst Thälmann . Compared to a GDR magazine he underlined: "I am a Marxist, whatever I sing." He therefore interpreted human rights violations in the Soviet Union as "a few mistakes and injustices". In 1984 he told the West Berlin Tagesspiegel that more important to him than freedom to travel was that there was no unemployment in the GDR : These were "priorities with which I identify as a Marxist".

With a US passport, he was involved in protests in the Middle East, North and South America. In 1977 he visited the PLO in southern Lebanon and sang for Yasser Arafat . In 1978 he showed solidarity with farmers in Delano , Minnesota , was temporarily detained in the local prison, went on hunger strike and sparked a global political campaign for his release. In 1983 he entered Chile illegally, gave concerts in Santiago and Rancagua without a permit, was arrested and deported to Peru.

descent

By the early 1980s, Reed's fame was fading. Occasional appearances in entertainment shows on East German and Soviet television and concerts in town halls took the place of tours . He was no longer in demand with the film. His own production Sing, Cowboy, sing fell through in 1981 with audiences and critics. The only highlight of this time was a five-day personality show Sing, Dean, sing! at the Palast der Republik during the 1981 summer break. The last LP, Dean Reed , was a flop. In 1986 he planned a film about the Indian uprising at Wounded Knee .

Internally, he had increasingly distanced himself from the GDR. The Stasi reported that Reed in 1982 during a check on the highway Volkspolizisten "compared and brought the GDR with a fascist state expressed that he, as well as the 17 million East Germans it up to here tired 'could' opposite. He also called on the People's Police to arrest him, which was "common practice here". Reed sang Bettina Wegner's dissident song Kinder in public and was admonished by the SED .

Recently he was often depressed, regularly phoned friends in the USA, and poured out their hearts. He listened to the American Forces Network (AFN) and was hoping for a comeback in the USA. In April 1986 he appeared in the magazine 60 Minutes of the US television channel CBS News to make himself known to the US audience. In doing so, he justified the construction of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan . Reed was subsequently showered with hate letters from US television viewers.

death

After a violent argument with his wife Renate Blume , with whom he had been married since 1981, Reed was found dead on June 13, 1986 in the knee-deep water of Lake Zeuthen, with his wrists cut and an overdose of sleeping pills. He left a 15-page farewell letter to the department head in the SED Central Committee, Eberhard Fensch , which was kept under lock and key by the GDR government until 1990. It said, among other things, that his wife had tormented him for years with jealousy. He did not renounce socialism and wrote: "It is the only solution to the main problems facing humanity in the world."

The news program of GDR television , Current Camera , reported Reed's death as a "tragic accident". This led to speculation about the actual circumstances of death. Rumors arose that Reed had been murdered by the Stasi or the KGB because he had contemplated returning to the United States. Others suspected that the CIA was trying to prevent that.

Reed was first buried in the Rauchfangswerder forest cemetery. In 1991, at the family's request, his urn was transferred to Boulder , Colorado, where it was buried in Green Mountain Cemetery .

Reed spoke English, German, Spanish, Italian and Russian. He was married three times and had three children, including one adopted child.

Reed and the secret services

When Reed fraternized with the Soviet goalkeeper Lev Yashin during the Soccer World Cup in Chile in 1962 , he was first recorded by the CIA. It is suspected that the US secret service was behind his expulsion from Argentina in 1966, but has not been proven.

From 1967 he took part in active measures by secret services of the Warsaw Pact states . These were various propaganda campaigns in which Reed and the services had the same goals.

In 1976 the GDR Ministry for State Security contacted Reed. Then he was listed as an unofficial employee (IM) under the self-chosen code name Victor . He reported on visits to diplomats from the US embassy in the GDR. In 1977 the GDR State Security Service tried to convince him to spy on Yasser Arafat. Reed refused and complained to Erich Honecker , who ordered that Reed no longer bothered. The Stasi then stopped working with him.

Awards

In 1980 he was awarded the Soviet Komsomol Prize for Art and Literature . The Free German Youth (FDJ) honored him with the Artur-Becker medal in gold. He received the Czechoslovak Julius Fučík Medal and the Bulgarian Georgi Dimitrov Medal . In 1985 the GDR awarded him the Star of Friendship of Nations in silver.

The Spark M. Matsunaga Institute for Peace of the University of Hawaii gives a Dean Reed Peace Award and the University of Colorado donated a Dean Reed Peace Prize Essay Contest , an annual essay competition in his memory.

Dean Reed received a special kind of honor when his likeness was printed on a label for “Rum-Cola” from the “VEB Beverage Combine Dessau ”.

Films about Reed

Reed's life has always provided material for films. In 1970, the director José Roman made the film Dean Reed , which documented the singer's campaign appearances in Chile. The DEFA film Dean Reed: Singer of the Other America (1972) is by Wernfried Hübel . Will Roberts produced American Rebel: The Dean Reed Story in 1985 .

After Reed's death, The Incredible Case of Comrade Rockstar was written by Leslie Woodhead (1992), Glamor und Protest by Peter Gehrig (1993), Who are you, Mr. Reed? by Viktor Beljakow (2004) and Der Rote Elvis by Leopold Grün (2007).

In 2004 Tom Hanks acquired the rights to film the biography of Reeds by Renate Blume. In 2012 he explained that this project was no longer relevant for him ("Unfortunately, this window of opportunity has closed. Dean's daughter Ramona is now negotiating with other interested parties ...").

Works

Autobiography

  • Dean Reed: Dean Reed - Dean Reed tells from his life . Written down by Hans-Dieter Bräuer; New Life Publishing House , Berlin 1980

Discography (selection)

  • The Search , Capitol Records, 1959
  • I Kissed a Queen , Capitol Records, 1959
  • He Besado A Una Reina , Capitol Chile, 1959
  • Our Summer Romance , Capitol Records, 1959
  • Nuestro Amor Veraniego , Capitol Chile, 1960
  • Don't Let Her Go , Capitol Records, 1960
  • I Forgot More Than You'll Ever Know , Imperial Records, 1961
  • Como Un Niño Soy , Odeon Chile, 1964
  • La Bamba , Odeon Argentina, 1965
  • Hippy Hippy Shake , Odeon Chile / Argentina, 1965
  • Simpatia , EMA 1966
  • Dean Reed , Melodija, 1969
  • Las Cosas Que Yo He Visto , Odeon Chile, 1971
  • Mississippi Line , Melodija 1972
  • We say yes ... , Amiga , 1972
  • Dean Reed a jeho svet , Supraphon, 1976
  • My Song For You , Supraphon, 1978
  • Rock 'n' Roll, Country & Romantic , Supraphon, 1980
  • Dean Reed Country , Supraphon, 1981
  • Dean Reed , Supraphon, 1986
  • Akter i pesnja: Dean Reed , Vostokchim, 2001
  • The Red Elvis: The Very Strange Story Of Dean Reed , Bear Family, 2007
  • His Amiga successes , SONY BMG, 2007

Movies

cinemamovies

TV productions

  • 1977: El Cantor (also director, screenplay)
  • 2018: An evening for Dean Reed, MDR television

literature

  • Dean Reed with Hans-Dieter Bräuer: Dean Reed - Dean Reed tells from his life . New Life Publishing House, Berlin 1980
    • 2nd updated and enlarged edition as: Dean Reed - From my life . Edition Peters, Leipzig / Dresden 1986
  • Reggie Nadelson : Comrade rock star. The search for Dean Reed . Chattoo & Windus, London 1991, ISBN 0-7011-3472-0
  • Jan Eik : Special incidents. Political affairs and assassinations in the GDR . Das Neue Berlin, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-360-00766-2 .
  • Stefan Ernsting: The red Elvis. Dean Reed or The Curious Life of a US Rock Star in the GDR . Kiepenheuer, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-378-01073-8 .
  • Klaus Huhn : The unsuccessful "exhumation" of Dean Reed . Spotless-Verlag, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-937943-02-1
  • Chuck Laszewski: Rock 'n' Roll Radical: The Life & Mysterious Death of Dean Reed . Beaver's Pond Press 2005, ISBN 1-59298-115-1 .
  • Fedor Rassakow: Dean Reed: Tragedija krasnogo kowboja . Eksmo, Moskva 2006, ISBN 5-699-17160-6 .
  • F.-B. Habel : Dean Reed - The True Story (with the assistance of Thomas Grossman). Verlag Neues Leben, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-355-01738-1 .
  • Rainer Bratfisch:  Reed, Dean (Cyril) . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 2. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .

Web links

Commons : Dean Reed  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ deanreed.de
  2. ↑ deanreed.de
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k John Caulkins: Looking back at Dean Reed, the American Soviet Superstar ( Memento of the original from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / prague.tv
  4. ↑ Markus Metz, Georg Seeßlen: The lonely cowboy of the east . In: Friday , August 3, 2007
  5. ^ A b Reggie Nadelson: Comrade Rock Star
  6. ↑ Dean Reed was like Elvis, only red in Die Welt , February 13, 2007
  7. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Dean's curriculum vitae deanreed.de
  8. ↑ Dean Reed: From my life . Leipzig / Dresden 1984, p. 25 f.
  9. ↑ a b discography deanreed.de
  10. ↑ a b c d Fedor Passakow: Dean Reed: Tragedija krasnogo kowboja
  11. ↑ derroteelvis.de
  12. ↑ The Truth About Dean Reed. ( Memento of the original from July 16, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: SUPERillu , August 22, 2007; Interview: Hannes Hofmann with Wiebke Reed @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.super-illu.de
  13. ↑ a b James M. Markham: US Folk Hero for Soviet Bloc .
  14. ↑ a b Michael Pilz: Dean Reed was like Elvis, only red . In: Die Welt , February 13, 2007
  15. ^ Dean Reed: Open letter from Dean Reed to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn .
  16. ↑ Quoted from Frank-Burkhard Habel : Gojko Mitic, Mustangs, Marterpfähle. The DEFA Indian films - the big book for fans . Schwarzkopf and Schwarzkopf, Berlin 1997, quoted on deanreed.de, accessed on December 25, 2015.
  17. ↑ Tell Zaatar deanreed.de
  18. ^ Rejection of the film project rankzero.de
  19. ↑ Lothar Heinke : Don't be angry, there is no other way . In: Tagesspiegel , April 27, 2004
  20. ↑ Record producer Michael Prostějovsk, based on: John Caulkins: ibid. ( Memento of the original of September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / prague.tv
  21. ↑ a b c Arna Vogel, Christian Blees: The Cowboy in Socialism ( Memento from September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive ; PDF)
  22. ↑ a b Sabine Magerl: 15 Years Fall of the Wall - In the Name of the Folk
  23. ^ Dean Reed - an American in East Berlin ( Memento from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), Jun 12, 2006, MDR
  24. ↑ a b US rocker Dean Reed: The Elvis of the Eastern Bloc . one day , February 11, 2008
  25. ^ Allegations to the wife: Dean Reed killed himself on n-tv on July 20, 2004
  26. ↑ Honoring deanreed.de
  27. ^ Image of the cola label
  28. ↑ deanreed.de Quote: "Tom Hanks, who wants to play the leading role in the film, has signed an exclusive contract with Reed's widow, the actress Renate Blume."
  29. ↑ filmography deanreed.de
  30. ↑ "Wetten, dass ..?" - Guest Tom Hanks: "Hey, it was still fun!" Spiegel Online , November 5, 2012
  31. ↑ An evening for Dean Reed . programm.ard.de
personal data
SURNAME Reed, Dean
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Reed, Dean Cyril (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American actor, singer, screenwriter and director
DATE OF BIRTH September 22, 1938
PLACE OF BIRTH Denver , Colorado
DATE OF DEATH June 13, 1986
Place of death Zeuthen , Brandenburg