Introducing: Red Elvis

Dean Reed sold out stadiums across communist Europe. But after a controversial 60 Minutes interview in 1986, his life came to a mysterious end.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
Let's have a nice welcome back for Deer. My father
was a rock star. It was like Beatlemania, but two
years before Beatlemania, but not here in America. Well, it
was sometimes referred to as the Red Elvis, or the
Johnny Cash of communism, or Frank Sinata of the Soviet Union.
His international fame gave him political influence. To me, it's

(00:32):
not a business. To me, it's a cause. And I
used my guitar as a rifle. I hope at a
time when the world was divided. This is the moment
in which the Cold War is really heating up. And
who's right smack dab in the middle of it all,
Dean Reid. He was an American living behind the Iron Curtain,
stuck between nuclear rivals. There's much more that unites the

(00:55):
American people and the Soviet people than divises through concerts
and TV shows. He supported Castro in Cuba, helped defeat
right wing dictators in South America in size the Vietnam War.
He was driven by a desire for equality, but it
all came at a personal cost. Danger followed him everywhere

(01:19):
he went in East Germany. As soon as he arrives
he comes into the view of nostalgic across South America.
He is arrested by the secret police and put into
Argentinian prison and back home where I was living in
the US about a doubt without a He had millions
of adoring fans hast him seeing on TV. It was

(01:42):
crazy about seeing him life, and also lots of enemies.
And I'm not afraid to call you that, because that's
exactly what you are. His career kept us apart from
most of my childhood. But just as I turned eighteen,
he made a big announcement. Because I'm not a trader.
I believe I'm an American. He wanted to come back home.

(02:02):
We could finally be together. And then the unthinkable happened.
He looked at me and he said, Dean Read died.
And then I fell into the sand, and they cried,
and I cried for so long. There were so many
questions and so few answers. I was pretty sure that

(02:26):
he had been assassinated. He committed suicide. He died not normally.
Come with me from Mona Read on a roller coaster
journey across three continents in four decades to learn more
about the extraordinary life and mysterious death. Of a man.
Millions of people idolized a rock star, a movie star,
and revolutionary, a man I called Papa, a man they

(02:51):
called Red Elvis. Listen to Red Elvis, a Curiosity Audio
Network podcast, every Wednesday on the I Heart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Starting to
send Verse seventh