January 4, 2023 • 31 mins
Dean settles into a life of superstardom behind the Iron Curtain. His friends back in South America pay a horrific price for their political beliefs, while Dean's trip to the U.S. to promote a film lands him in jail.
Red Elvis is a co-production of iHeart Podcasts and School of Humans and is part of the Curiosity Audio Network. It's based on the Curiosity Stream documentary Red Elvis: The Cold War Cowboy. Check out the doc at https://curiositystream.com
Got tips, questions or comments? Email RedElvisPodcast@gmail.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
It's nine Helsinki, Finland. It's the World Congress for Peace,
National Independence and General Disarmament. Hundred people from ninety eight countries, politicians,
writers and artists, all conversed in one giant hall for
six days with the goal of furthering peace in the
nuclear age, or at least that was the stated goal.
(00:40):
The CIA would beg to differ on what the real
goal was. My dad is here with a delegation from Argentina.
He meets and befriends Chilean poet Pablo Nod, who, as
you learned in the last episode, would later help get
Papa released from Argentinian prison. This is where Papa met
the cosmonaut Tereshkova as well. He feels a sense of
(01:03):
belonging here, He's found his people. It's intense but productive.
Representatives from capitalist countries and socialist ones are all working together. Then,
on the last day, the Chinese delegation throws a wrench
into the works. They claim that any discussion of world
piece is not warranted as long as quote the World
(01:24):
Revolution end quote has not triumphed. They want communism to
prevail at all costs. The room grows tense. Papa thinks
this can't happen now, it can't just all fall apart.
Here he springs into action, walks to the front of
the hall, Graham's hands with a couple of delegates, and
(01:46):
begins to sing. Ah. It works. The tension is release,
the spirit of cooperation is back in the air, even
(02:09):
though the Chinese refused to join in. It was a
moment of triumph. But something else happened in that moment
that would be more important, more pivotal for Papa's future.
In the crowd was a man named bors Nikolai Pastakov.
He saw something in Papa. He saw how a charismatic
(02:30):
American with of us good looks and socialist politics could
warm a hostile crowd. Pastokov was the head of the
Soviet Youth Organization, and the Soviet youth well, they liked
Western culture and they were disgruntled too. Maybe a man
like Dean Read is exactly what the Soviets needed. Pastokov
(02:52):
invited Papa in a train bound for Moscow. Love your brother,
but hate your ana. I'm Ramona Red and this is
(03:15):
read of us. Think that peace and love with just
say hey. Then I learned the life is not only
a gay age. Each man must fight and fight a game.
But never, never, never let your life just flow away age.
(03:35):
Let your life have value of every day. Episode four,
We are the Revolutionaries before Italy, before the trouble started
in their marriage. My mom and Papa went on a
formative trip to Russia. From Moscow. My mom wrote a
(03:59):
letter home, dearest Mom, Grandmom and family. Here we are
in Russia, and how exciting this is our second week.
Dean has been in concerts for the last three nights.
His first concert became an overnight success. The audience packed
full twelve hundred seats, all tickets sold out completely went
(04:20):
wild over his two hour program. He has an eighteen
piece orchestra behind him. He sings rock and roll ballads,
folk songs, and his songs, and a Harry Belafonte song
where he speaks in Russian to the audience, trying to
get them to sing with them. After his last song,
the audience wouldn't let him off the stage, so he
(04:41):
sang three extra songs and then about six curtain calls
till he called it a night. When we went to
the dressing room, floods of government officials greeted us and
shook hands with Dino saying that they had never seen
such a performance in Moscow. The people who hired Dino
are so excited and have extended our contracts for more concerts,
(05:05):
so we will be here altogether two months. We leave
for Linning Grad on Sunday night. Huge crowds followed wherever
he went. He had sold out tours all over the USSR,
and that's why they called him the red Elvis in
the U s SR. He was bigger than Elvis. I mean,
that's exhortinary, that's a crazy story. I need police escorted
(05:28):
to be able to walk in the streets in Moscow
after the concerts. I need a hundred police so I
can get to my car that I gave you Ruthie
in the Vogue. Yes, MOSCOWA. I've learned so much from you,
you the Soviet people. I love you very, very very much,
and you have much happiness and peace in your life.
(05:50):
Lana Davis's mother went to one of his concerts during
this tour. Russian culture was very restricted at the time,
and the sinkers would come out to the stage and
they would be varying a suit and they would be
singing like this, and they would early move and Dean
was not like that. He would jump off the stage,
(06:10):
he would walk along the aisles. For us, it was
not just a breath of fresh air. For us, it
was the biggest revelation after Bible. Dean's performance changed my
mother's life forever. It changed her views, it changed her
attitude to life, and it changed the way she was
(06:32):
looking at things. It could be that this really restricted
girl of the Second World War opened up because she
saw his performance, because he influenced her in such an
amazing way. Papa's fame across the Union extended to East Berlin,
(07:07):
the communist side of the German city that had been
split by a giant wall. When Dean Reed came to
UH first to East Berlin, I was asked to show
him around. Fitzer Grossman got to know Papone while he
was there for a film festival. My first impression of
Dean was amazement. I was used to left wing people
(07:28):
visiting from the United States and other places, and when
they sent me this left wing singer, I didn't expect
this very beautiful looking, handsome, muscular cowboy from Colorado. He
didn't fit into any any idea of what I expected
from a left wing singer at the time with those
(07:50):
folk singers. I interpreted him for his first concerts, and
that simply stayed that way, that I was his interpreter.
We became friends, and I understood his American and he
understood me, so that we got along very well together.
I recall this concert in Potsdam where we were behind
(08:13):
the stage and about a hundred women became mobbing, and
I got scared almost. I said, Dean, here's a door,
we can get out here, and he said, no, no, no.
An artist is obliged to meet the wishes of his
concert goers and his fans. So he stayed and he wrote.
I think he wrote peace, Freedom, Peace. Dean read more
(08:37):
than just Berlin. The whole country of Germany was divided East, Communist,
West capitalist. I think lots of people in the West,
and especially in the United States, didn't understand the situation
in Germany that it was split down not the middle,
with only about one third in the East and the
(08:58):
rest in the West. The West was subsidized by the
Marshall Plan and was built up to be full of
consumer goods most modern. The East had to pull itself
up by his own bootstraps pay the war reparations alone
almost and with almost no major industry, and it had
a rough time, and the West was luring the best people,
(09:21):
the best trained people, the doctors, they engineers, they were
luring them away, until finally it was so dangerous that
they set up this wall, which became the dividing line
in the whole world between East and West. And it
was a move of desperation by the East to save
themselves from going down the drain. And all of this
splitting started after Hitler, but during the war it had
(09:45):
been a different story. I grew up mostly in New
York and New Jersey at the end of the nineteen
thirties when the whole atmosphere was very leftist, and then
when I went to college to Harvard, I was recruited
as a Communist and became a communist. Those days, Soviets
were still in great allies of the United Eights and
(10:05):
fighting Hitler. The Communists had been the most active in
fighting racism and for women's rights and so forth. This
attracted me, and then I got drafted. But then McCarthy
era started and you had to write down any left
wing organizations who had been in which almost immediately made
you a criminal. So I was scared. The Cold War
(10:26):
was heating up and Communism became the new boogeyman in America. You,
as Senator Joseph McCarthy, led the charge. I intend to
give the American people the cold documented picture of the
extent to which communism has been directing our foreign policy.
And I don't intend to ever avoid giving the names
(10:49):
of traitors, giving the names of communists when I discover
them an important position. Meanwhile, Victor was stationed in part
of West Germany. I was a soldier in Bavaria, and
I suddenly got this letter from Washington saying you were
a member of six seven different organizations were bought to
military judge, and I said, the jigs up with me.
(11:10):
I have to get out of here. Victor fled West
Germany for the East and stayed there for the next
few decades. As the Wall went up and the tensions
grew hotter, he met others who left the United States
as well. We were a group in East Berlin of Americans,
(11:32):
maybe a dozen or so. Number came like me as
refugees from the McCarthey era in the United States, which
I had to run away from. Other Americans came for
various reasons, but there were never many of us. We
were always kind of exotic, and Dean, of course, was
the most exotic of all. Invente. Papa brought me to
(11:56):
East Berlind for performance at the World Festival of Youth
and Students. But I did bring my little daughter from
Italy who was five years old, and her friend, and
I want you all to help me sing this song
with me, please. I didn't remember much about the festival
(12:18):
until someone found this footage of me and Papa singing.
It's the only time I've ever seen us together on film,
and I love it. She was born in Italy and
only speaks Italian. Here's Papa talking about me on East
German television. She had learned one thing in English to
tell me, and she said, Papa, she says, I love you, God,
(12:44):
damn it. On that trip I also met my papa's
new wife, Vika. They've been together for a couple of years.
She was a big reason Papa stay in East Berlin
that and it was a chance to live his beliefs,
a chance to experience socialism in practice. He had moved
there full time in seventy two. I mean Germany of
(13:07):
nineteen seventy two was in chaos, and it was probably
the year in which represented in a certain sense of
the moral apex of East Germany. Cold War historian Justin
Jamble they were opposed to American invention in Vietnam. They
were supportive of Cuba, of revolutions in Angola and Mozambique,
(13:32):
and this would have appealed to Dean Read. Berlin was
the ultimate symbol of the Cold War, with the Berlin
Wall that divided East and West, the American backed Allies
and the Soviet backed East Germany. The lines were drawn,
and by Dean Read moving to East Berlin, he was
(13:53):
voting with his feet. December two, Moscow, Dear Patricia, today
is twenty eight degrees below zero. It does freeze one's
(14:15):
face when one only walks a few blocks. I imagine
California must be about fifty above. I imagine that by
now you must be getting used to USA again. It's
large cars, large highways, large houses, and a large legacy
of international crime. My dad could travel pretty easily behind
the Iron Curtain. He sent me postcards from Prague, Budapest, Azerbaijan,
(14:40):
and he sent me small gifts when he could here
are a few gifts that were given to me by
people throughout the world. I thought maybe you might like
to begin a collection of medals. We are working very hard.
I'm giving a thirty eight concert tour, and Viebka is
getting ready to have the baby. Here in socialism we
have five year plans, so I am already planning for
(15:02):
nineteen seventy seven, and this summer of nineteen seventy seven.
You must come and spend the summer with us. Okay.
Back in California, Mom was writing, trying to get some
screenplays off the ground. She took a part time job
as a travel agent, and of course was taking care
(15:23):
of me. My mom and I lived in Palm Desert
at a house we called Pa Ramona. Third of January, Berlin.
Dear Patricia and Ramona, I am so excited about your
new life ranch and horse. When I come in April,
I will have to seriously make Ramona into a cowgirl.
(15:43):
Papa was very productive behind the Iron curtain, five films
in five years. In East Germany. The state owned film
studio called Diva started financing and producing my father's movies.
It was a mutually beneficial relationship. My father was given
a platform for his politics, and those politics often lie
(16:05):
end up with the goals of the communist state. The
collaboration would last the rest of his career. His first
big hit for them was called Blood Brothers. By Love
and Where the Cross? Okay? So that food? That's it.
(16:33):
My father introduces the film with an explanation does in
decent films? Four hundred yards in America, Nick bin Madina
Indian erstand this film took place a hundred years ago
in America, but it could be today in East Germany
and Argentina and Chile, or in another country. Mark Valley
is the voice of Papa here and throughout this podcast.
(16:55):
As an actor, Mark lived and worked in Berlin in
the eighties and the nineties. He studied Papa's film career,
especially Blood Brothers. Dean was a co writer he and
his character Um more or less on who he aspired
to be. In this movie, he plays a young cavalry
soldier who witnesses a horrible atrocity and sides with the Indians.
(17:16):
The atrocity is based on real event eighteen sixty four,
the Sand Creek Massacre, which occurred in Colorado, which is
Dean's home States There's a moment in the film where
Papa snaps the pole holding the American flag. He does
this because he's disgusted by what the white American soldiers
(17:37):
have done to the Native Americans. When Dean snaps the
American flag, we can look at and say, oh, he
was you know, he was doing this for the East Germans.
Who's doing this for the audience, who's parenting them? In
some ways, you can say this is also an advertisement
for the First Amendment. People in East Germany are saying, Wow,
Americans can snap their own flag and get away with it,
(17:58):
and um, they wouldn't be able to do that. I
think in the DDR it's the hottest film in East Germany.
It's a number one film for that year in and
it shot Dean into the realm of superstardom. He was
already famous, but now with a film that was bankrolled
(18:19):
by the East German film industry, he was given this
huge platform in order to represent Dean Reid's own interpretation
of the good American cowboy. Dear Patricia. My film Blood
Brothers was voted best Film of the Year. How about
(18:40):
Them Cookies Got Your Letter Today, which was like a
slug on my chin. I cannot believe that Ramona got
no cards and package. I center exactly four birthday letters
in one package with some small presents, and the letters
were sent more than a month ago. Shit. It's hell
trying to behalf of a father from another world. My
(19:00):
situation is very bad. I have, of course, no way
to make Western money, but I shall always meet the
payments one way or the other, so don't worry. I
still have nightmares every night about Chili bastards keep on
executing and torturing. So after Dean Reid helps his ally
and friend, the leftist leader Salvador Ayenda, win the Chilean election,
(19:24):
only a couple of years later, General Pinochet in a
US backed c I A led coup topples Salvador Ayenda's government,
and Salvador Ayenda kills himself, and this is the end
of Dean Reid's dream for a Chilean government that has
(19:46):
a leftist government in place. From East Berlin, Papa mourned
Allende's death. A couple of weeks later, his friend Pablo
Neruda died as well. The coup had been violent and bloody.
Another friend of Papa's, Chilean folk singer Victor Hara was
(20:08):
tortured then murdered, his body thrown in the streets. I
can only imagine how painful this was for Papa to
hear about. He later told me that he had lost
all his friends in South America, but he's not one
to wallow. He used that sadness and anger as fuel.
I'm finishing the script from my next film, which begins
(20:30):
in October. It is about my Chilean singer friend, Victor Harra,
who was killed by the fascist in Chili. I shall
also play the main role and direct the film. We
should be Good Luck. Papa traveled back to the US
(21:11):
to promote his film El Contour. He stopped by California,
took me to the beach. Papa did some business in
l A, met with Dick Clark in hopes of getting
another spot on American Bandstand. He visited his mom, visited
his mentor, paytent price, and went fishing with his dad.
Then it was off to screen his film. He came
(21:31):
back to Minnesota to show his film El Cantor at
the University of Minnesota. Bell Cantor was about his good
friend Victor Harra being assassinated during the coup theend coup.
(21:54):
But the film wasn't what made headlines. It was Papa's
reaction to a local struggle. A utility company with government
support was trying to build power lines on Nate of land,
planning on putting power lines through the lands of Native
Americans and the farmers, and he decided to join in
on the protest, which was the kind of thing he
(22:16):
would do. And I think it was an opportunity to
help the Native Americans and help the little guy, the farmers.
And uh he joined and was arrested and put in jail.
The people was wrong. I found a clip from Twin
Cities Public television Papa's getting arrested Andy singing and instead
(22:39):
of paying a three hundred dollar fine to get out,
he will He thought he could have more influence inside
the jail. You see a pattern here. There are telegraphs
sent um from the former East Block, his legions and
legions of fans that are writing to this Minnesota prison
to let this guy go, and it becomes an international incident.
(23:01):
When I was living in Moscow, I was going through
stack of newspapers and I found an article about this
man who went to jail for the rights of the people.
He didn't even know. Life around me at the time,
and the Soviet Union was very dull, and everybody was
pursuing their own little interests. There were very few people
(23:25):
who cared to look at others, who cared to care
about others. And suddenly I find this foreigner who was
putting his life on the line for all the things
that really weren't his. Papa sat in jail, and just
like Argentina, he felt it was time for a hunger strike.
(23:47):
Pete Seeger and Joan Pias petition president Carter on Papa's behalf.
Here's my cousin Jim. After the eleven days of hunger strike,
they actually went before a judge and jury. There was
seven hours of deliberation and at the end of the
day all the protesters were of course released. Be read
strike eleven days. How are you feeling? I mustagan thus
(24:12):
UH have to say that I'm a good week to
the U S monopolies. We will not allow anymore that
our human rights are thrown under the feet of these
big concerns. Papa helped bring the struggle to a wider audience,
but ultimately the power lines were built. Anyway, I'm sure
(24:33):
he'd say it was worth it, but it was not
without costs. So in the redacted FBI file, it says
reporting on his arrest, the arrest has prompted a growing,
well organized reaction in support of Read, including messages to
the President from the German youth organization demanding his release.
(24:55):
The media have publicized the solidarity as a genuine, spontaneous
outpouring of sympathy for Read for the entire republic. This
represents a small chunk of the FBI files about Dean Reid,
and I think in some ways it suggests Dean's power. I,
(25:16):
Ronald Reagan, do solemnly swear, I, Ronald Reagan, do solemnly
swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President
of the United States, that I will faithfully execute the
office of President of the United States. Back in Berlin,
Papa faced the increased East West tensions that came with
Reagan's presidency. We are witnessing today a great revolutionary crisis,
(25:40):
a crisis where the demands of the economic order are
conflicting directly with those of the political order. But the
crisis is happening not in the free, non Marxist West,
but in the home of Marxist Leninism, the Soviet Union,
and we know that there are even those who strive
(26:02):
and suffer for freedom within the confines of the Soul.
Union has shown. The thing with the Iron Curtain is
that it's pretty good at separating people and preventing people
from crossing from one side to the other. But what
you can't stop is the airwaves and music radio stations.
(26:26):
And that meant that those in the East were aware
of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones. There was a real
threat to the Soviet political line, and the Soviets found
Indean read a kind of a golden head. He was safe,
he was politically aligned, and he could espouse the things
(26:48):
and confirm the things that the Soviet government had been
saying all along, and that was a very very powerful
weapon in the arsenal of the Soviet Union. To me,
it's not a business. To me, it's a cause. And
I used my guitar as a rifle, I hope. I
think Dean enjoyed the benefits of the Soviets needing a
(27:11):
Western rock star Papa's friend Neil Jacobs. It was very
advantageous for them to find somebody like Dean who could
be a socialist and a rock star and look very American.
I think he probably knew to some degree that he
was being used, but maybe in his mind the ends
justified the means. He says that Soviet system was not
(27:32):
the kind of socialism that he want in every country
had to determine their own socialism. Dean wrote a soul
that was called we Are the Revolutionaries. That soul was
(27:59):
the bunch in the face of what he saw as
imperialists and the people who held back the rest of
the people from equality. That song was very well accepted
in Russia. That song was played on tape recorders across
the whole Soviet Union, all the country, and it was
(28:31):
one of the most beautiful songs I think he's ever written.
In particular, we Are the Revolutionaries was one of his
more successful protest songs, and eventually I think we would
come back to haunt him once people in the United
States heard this, or that he was going to have
a hard time coming back to America. I would suspect
(28:52):
on the next episode of Red Office, when you're somebody
of Dean reads celebrity and status in the East, you
are going to be approached by the secret police and
Dean read was by the Stasi. There are people injected
in his surroundings that our informants for the Stasi and
deliver information on where he's going, what he's doing. Of
(29:14):
the Eastern Bloc was changing. It felt like, after seventy
years of life, the old Man Communism was basically taking
its last brow. I think every person who lives in
exile in a foreign country gets homesick. I would love
to speak my language again. Yes, I really missed my people.
(29:44):
Red Elvis is a co production of I Heart Podcasts
and School of Humans, based on the Curiosity Stream documentary
Red Elvis the Cold or Cowboy, directed by Thomas Ladder
and produced by Tallis Films. Check out the doc at
curiosity stream dot com to learn more about Dean and
Nemona and to watch his performances from all over the world.
This show is hosted, co written, and executive produced by
(30:06):
Ramona Reid, Jason English, Virginia Prescott, Brendan Barr and L. C.
Crowley are executive producers. Ryan Murdoch is the co writer
and senior producer. Jessica Metzger is the senior producer. Jeremy
Thall That's Me is our editor. Fact checking by Savannah
Hugeley and Adam Bisno. This episode was mixed and mastered
by Zubin Hensler Thomas Ladder as consulting producer. Dean Read
(30:29):
is voiced by Mark Valley. Patty Read is voiced by
Nicole Britton. Casting support services provided by Breakdown Services. Additional
voices provided by Fabian Verfel. Music licensing by John Luongo
for Trector Entertainment. Additional music by Zuban Hendler, Jeremy Thall
and Ross Bell and WAP narration recorded at JTB Studios,
(30:50):
Los Angeles. Special thanks to John Higgins with Curiosity Stream.
If you're enjoying the show, leave a review in your
favorite podcast app. Check out the Curiosity Audio Network for
podcasts covering history, pop culture, true crime, and more. M
h At a house we called Casa de Romona. I
(31:14):
wanted to roll my arms. It didn't work. Ramona School
of Humans
It's nine Helsinki, Finland. It's the World Congress for Peace,
National Independence and General Disarmament. Hundred people from ninety eight countries, politicians,
writers and artists, all conversed in one giant hall for
six days with the goal of furthering peace in the
nuclear age, or at least that was the stated goal.
(00:40):
The CIA would beg to differ on what the real
goal was. My dad is here with a delegation from Argentina.
He meets and befriends Chilean poet Pablo Nod, who, as
you learned in the last episode, would later help get
Papa released from Argentinian prison. This is where Papa met
the cosmonaut Tereshkova as well. He feels a sense of
(01:03):
belonging here, He's found his people. It's intense but productive.
Representatives from capitalist countries and socialist ones are all working together. Then,
on the last day, the Chinese delegation throws a wrench
into the works. They claim that any discussion of world
piece is not warranted as long as quote the World
(01:24):
Revolution end quote has not triumphed. They want communism to
prevail at all costs. The room grows tense. Papa thinks
this can't happen now, it can't just all fall apart.
Here he springs into action, walks to the front of
the hall, Graham's hands with a couple of delegates, and
(01:46):
begins to sing. Ah. It works. The tension is release,
the spirit of cooperation is back in the air, even
(02:09):
though the Chinese refused to join in. It was a
moment of triumph. But something else happened in that moment
that would be more important, more pivotal for Papa's future.
In the crowd was a man named bors Nikolai Pastakov.
He saw something in Papa. He saw how a charismatic
(02:30):
American with of us good looks and socialist politics could
warm a hostile crowd. Pastokov was the head of the
Soviet Youth Organization, and the Soviet youth well, they liked
Western culture and they were disgruntled too. Maybe a man
like Dean Read is exactly what the Soviets needed. Pastokov
(02:52):
invited Papa in a train bound for Moscow. Love your brother,
but hate your ana. I'm Ramona Red and this is
(03:15):
read of us. Think that peace and love with just
say hey. Then I learned the life is not only
a gay age. Each man must fight and fight a game.
But never, never, never let your life just flow away age.
(03:35):
Let your life have value of every day. Episode four,
We are the Revolutionaries before Italy, before the trouble started
in their marriage. My mom and Papa went on a
formative trip to Russia. From Moscow. My mom wrote a
(03:59):
letter home, dearest Mom, Grandmom and family. Here we are
in Russia, and how exciting this is our second week.
Dean has been in concerts for the last three nights.
His first concert became an overnight success. The audience packed
full twelve hundred seats, all tickets sold out completely went
(04:20):
wild over his two hour program. He has an eighteen
piece orchestra behind him. He sings rock and roll ballads,
folk songs, and his songs, and a Harry Belafonte song
where he speaks in Russian to the audience, trying to
get them to sing with them. After his last song,
the audience wouldn't let him off the stage, so he
(04:41):
sang three extra songs and then about six curtain calls
till he called it a night. When we went to
the dressing room, floods of government officials greeted us and
shook hands with Dino saying that they had never seen
such a performance in Moscow. The people who hired Dino
are so excited and have extended our contracts for more concerts,
(05:05):
so we will be here altogether two months. We leave
for Linning Grad on Sunday night. Huge crowds followed wherever
he went. He had sold out tours all over the USSR,
and that's why they called him the red Elvis in
the U s SR. He was bigger than Elvis. I mean,
that's exhortinary, that's a crazy story. I need police escorted
(05:28):
to be able to walk in the streets in Moscow
after the concerts. I need a hundred police so I
can get to my car that I gave you Ruthie
in the Vogue. Yes, MOSCOWA. I've learned so much from you,
you the Soviet people. I love you very, very very much,
and you have much happiness and peace in your life.
(05:50):
Lana Davis's mother went to one of his concerts during
this tour. Russian culture was very restricted at the time,
and the sinkers would come out to the stage and
they would be varying a suit and they would be
singing like this, and they would early move and Dean
was not like that. He would jump off the stage,
(06:10):
he would walk along the aisles. For us, it was
not just a breath of fresh air. For us, it
was the biggest revelation after Bible. Dean's performance changed my
mother's life forever. It changed her views, it changed her
attitude to life, and it changed the way she was
(06:32):
looking at things. It could be that this really restricted
girl of the Second World War opened up because she
saw his performance, because he influenced her in such an
amazing way. Papa's fame across the Union extended to East Berlin,
(07:07):
the communist side of the German city that had been
split by a giant wall. When Dean Reed came to
UH first to East Berlin, I was asked to show
him around. Fitzer Grossman got to know Papone while he
was there for a film festival. My first impression of
Dean was amazement. I was used to left wing people
(07:28):
visiting from the United States and other places, and when
they sent me this left wing singer, I didn't expect
this very beautiful looking, handsome, muscular cowboy from Colorado. He
didn't fit into any any idea of what I expected
from a left wing singer at the time with those
(07:50):
folk singers. I interpreted him for his first concerts, and
that simply stayed that way, that I was his interpreter.
We became friends, and I understood his American and he
understood me, so that we got along very well together.
I recall this concert in Potsdam where we were behind
(08:13):
the stage and about a hundred women became mobbing, and
I got scared almost. I said, Dean, here's a door,
we can get out here, and he said, no, no, no.
An artist is obliged to meet the wishes of his
concert goers and his fans. So he stayed and he wrote.
I think he wrote peace, Freedom, Peace. Dean read more
(08:37):
than just Berlin. The whole country of Germany was divided East, Communist,
West capitalist. I think lots of people in the West,
and especially in the United States, didn't understand the situation
in Germany that it was split down not the middle,
with only about one third in the East and the
(08:58):
rest in the West. The West was subsidized by the
Marshall Plan and was built up to be full of
consumer goods most modern. The East had to pull itself
up by his own bootstraps pay the war reparations alone
almost and with almost no major industry, and it had
a rough time, and the West was luring the best people,
(09:21):
the best trained people, the doctors, they engineers, they were
luring them away, until finally it was so dangerous that
they set up this wall, which became the dividing line
in the whole world between East and West. And it
was a move of desperation by the East to save
themselves from going down the drain. And all of this
splitting started after Hitler, but during the war it had
(09:45):
been a different story. I grew up mostly in New
York and New Jersey at the end of the nineteen
thirties when the whole atmosphere was very leftist, and then
when I went to college to Harvard, I was recruited
as a Communist and became a communist. Those days, Soviets
were still in great allies of the United Eights and
(10:05):
fighting Hitler. The Communists had been the most active in
fighting racism and for women's rights and so forth. This
attracted me, and then I got drafted. But then McCarthy
era started and you had to write down any left
wing organizations who had been in which almost immediately made
you a criminal. So I was scared. The Cold War
(10:26):
was heating up and Communism became the new boogeyman in America. You,
as Senator Joseph McCarthy, led the charge. I intend to
give the American people the cold documented picture of the
extent to which communism has been directing our foreign policy.
And I don't intend to ever avoid giving the names
(10:49):
of traitors, giving the names of communists when I discover
them an important position. Meanwhile, Victor was stationed in part
of West Germany. I was a soldier in Bavaria, and
I suddenly got this letter from Washington saying you were
a member of six seven different organizations were bought to
military judge, and I said, the jigs up with me.
(11:10):
I have to get out of here. Victor fled West
Germany for the East and stayed there for the next
few decades. As the Wall went up and the tensions
grew hotter, he met others who left the United States
as well. We were a group in East Berlin of Americans,
(11:32):
maybe a dozen or so. Number came like me as
refugees from the McCarthey era in the United States, which
I had to run away from. Other Americans came for
various reasons, but there were never many of us. We
were always kind of exotic, and Dean, of course, was
the most exotic of all. Invente. Papa brought me to
(11:56):
East Berlind for performance at the World Festival of Youth
and Students. But I did bring my little daughter from
Italy who was five years old, and her friend, and
I want you all to help me sing this song
with me, please. I didn't remember much about the festival
(12:18):
until someone found this footage of me and Papa singing.
It's the only time I've ever seen us together on film,
and I love it. She was born in Italy and
only speaks Italian. Here's Papa talking about me on East
German television. She had learned one thing in English to
tell me, and she said, Papa, she says, I love you, God,
(12:44):
damn it. On that trip I also met my papa's
new wife, Vika. They've been together for a couple of years.
She was a big reason Papa stay in East Berlin
that and it was a chance to live his beliefs,
a chance to experience socialism in practice. He had moved
there full time in seventy two. I mean Germany of
(13:07):
nineteen seventy two was in chaos, and it was probably
the year in which represented in a certain sense of
the moral apex of East Germany. Cold War historian Justin
Jamble they were opposed to American invention in Vietnam. They
were supportive of Cuba, of revolutions in Angola and Mozambique,
(13:32):
and this would have appealed to Dean Read. Berlin was
the ultimate symbol of the Cold War, with the Berlin
Wall that divided East and West, the American backed Allies
and the Soviet backed East Germany. The lines were drawn,
and by Dean Read moving to East Berlin, he was
(13:53):
voting with his feet. December two, Moscow, Dear Patricia, today
is twenty eight degrees below zero. It does freeze one's
(14:15):
face when one only walks a few blocks. I imagine
California must be about fifty above. I imagine that by
now you must be getting used to USA again. It's
large cars, large highways, large houses, and a large legacy
of international crime. My dad could travel pretty easily behind
the Iron Curtain. He sent me postcards from Prague, Budapest, Azerbaijan,
(14:40):
and he sent me small gifts when he could here
are a few gifts that were given to me by
people throughout the world. I thought maybe you might like
to begin a collection of medals. We are working very hard.
I'm giving a thirty eight concert tour, and Viebka is
getting ready to have the baby. Here in socialism we
have five year plans, so I am already planning for
(15:02):
nineteen seventy seven, and this summer of nineteen seventy seven.
You must come and spend the summer with us. Okay.
Back in California, Mom was writing, trying to get some
screenplays off the ground. She took a part time job
as a travel agent, and of course was taking care
(15:23):
of me. My mom and I lived in Palm Desert
at a house we called Pa Ramona. Third of January, Berlin.
Dear Patricia and Ramona, I am so excited about your
new life ranch and horse. When I come in April,
I will have to seriously make Ramona into a cowgirl.
(15:43):
Papa was very productive behind the Iron curtain, five films
in five years. In East Germany. The state owned film
studio called Diva started financing and producing my father's movies.
It was a mutually beneficial relationship. My father was given
a platform for his politics, and those politics often lie
(16:05):
end up with the goals of the communist state. The
collaboration would last the rest of his career. His first
big hit for them was called Blood Brothers. By Love
and Where the Cross? Okay? So that food? That's it.
(16:33):
My father introduces the film with an explanation does in
decent films? Four hundred yards in America, Nick bin Madina
Indian erstand this film took place a hundred years ago
in America, but it could be today in East Germany
and Argentina and Chile, or in another country. Mark Valley
is the voice of Papa here and throughout this podcast.
(16:55):
As an actor, Mark lived and worked in Berlin in
the eighties and the nineties. He studied Papa's film career,
especially Blood Brothers. Dean was a co writer he and
his character Um more or less on who he aspired
to be. In this movie, he plays a young cavalry
soldier who witnesses a horrible atrocity and sides with the Indians.
(17:16):
The atrocity is based on real event eighteen sixty four,
the Sand Creek Massacre, which occurred in Colorado, which is
Dean's home States There's a moment in the film where
Papa snaps the pole holding the American flag. He does
this because he's disgusted by what the white American soldiers
(17:37):
have done to the Native Americans. When Dean snaps the
American flag, we can look at and say, oh, he
was you know, he was doing this for the East Germans.
Who's doing this for the audience, who's parenting them? In
some ways, you can say this is also an advertisement
for the First Amendment. People in East Germany are saying, Wow,
Americans can snap their own flag and get away with it,
(17:58):
and um, they wouldn't be able to do that. I
think in the DDR it's the hottest film in East Germany.
It's a number one film for that year in and
it shot Dean into the realm of superstardom. He was
already famous, but now with a film that was bankrolled
(18:19):
by the East German film industry, he was given this
huge platform in order to represent Dean Reid's own interpretation
of the good American cowboy. Dear Patricia. My film Blood
Brothers was voted best Film of the Year. How about
(18:40):
Them Cookies Got Your Letter Today, which was like a
slug on my chin. I cannot believe that Ramona got
no cards and package. I center exactly four birthday letters
in one package with some small presents, and the letters
were sent more than a month ago. Shit. It's hell
trying to behalf of a father from another world. My
(19:00):
situation is very bad. I have, of course, no way
to make Western money, but I shall always meet the
payments one way or the other, so don't worry. I
still have nightmares every night about Chili bastards keep on
executing and torturing. So after Dean Reid helps his ally
and friend, the leftist leader Salvador Ayenda, win the Chilean election,
(19:24):
only a couple of years later, General Pinochet in a
US backed c I A led coup topples Salvador Ayenda's government,
and Salvador Ayenda kills himself, and this is the end
of Dean Reid's dream for a Chilean government that has
(19:46):
a leftist government in place. From East Berlin, Papa mourned
Allende's death. A couple of weeks later, his friend Pablo
Neruda died as well. The coup had been violent and bloody.
Another friend of Papa's, Chilean folk singer Victor Hara was
(20:08):
tortured then murdered, his body thrown in the streets. I
can only imagine how painful this was for Papa to
hear about. He later told me that he had lost
all his friends in South America, but he's not one
to wallow. He used that sadness and anger as fuel.
I'm finishing the script from my next film, which begins
(20:30):
in October. It is about my Chilean singer friend, Victor Harra,
who was killed by the fascist in Chili. I shall
also play the main role and direct the film. We
should be Good Luck. Papa traveled back to the US
(21:11):
to promote his film El Contour. He stopped by California,
took me to the beach. Papa did some business in
l A, met with Dick Clark in hopes of getting
another spot on American Bandstand. He visited his mom, visited
his mentor, paytent price, and went fishing with his dad.
Then it was off to screen his film. He came
(21:31):
back to Minnesota to show his film El Cantor at
the University of Minnesota. Bell Cantor was about his good
friend Victor Harra being assassinated during the coup theend coup.
(21:54):
But the film wasn't what made headlines. It was Papa's
reaction to a local struggle. A utility company with government
support was trying to build power lines on Nate of land,
planning on putting power lines through the lands of Native
Americans and the farmers, and he decided to join in
on the protest, which was the kind of thing he
(22:16):
would do. And I think it was an opportunity to
help the Native Americans and help the little guy, the farmers.
And uh he joined and was arrested and put in jail.
The people was wrong. I found a clip from Twin
Cities Public television Papa's getting arrested Andy singing and instead
(22:39):
of paying a three hundred dollar fine to get out,
he will He thought he could have more influence inside
the jail. You see a pattern here. There are telegraphs
sent um from the former East Block, his legions and
legions of fans that are writing to this Minnesota prison
to let this guy go, and it becomes an international incident.
(23:01):
When I was living in Moscow, I was going through
stack of newspapers and I found an article about this
man who went to jail for the rights of the people.
He didn't even know. Life around me at the time,
and the Soviet Union was very dull, and everybody was
pursuing their own little interests. There were very few people
(23:25):
who cared to look at others, who cared to care
about others. And suddenly I find this foreigner who was
putting his life on the line for all the things
that really weren't his. Papa sat in jail, and just
like Argentina, he felt it was time for a hunger strike.
(23:47):
Pete Seeger and Joan Pias petition president Carter on Papa's behalf.
Here's my cousin Jim. After the eleven days of hunger strike,
they actually went before a judge and jury. There was
seven hours of deliberation and at the end of the
day all the protesters were of course released. Be read
strike eleven days. How are you feeling? I mustagan thus
(24:12):
UH have to say that I'm a good week to
the U S monopolies. We will not allow anymore that
our human rights are thrown under the feet of these
big concerns. Papa helped bring the struggle to a wider audience,
but ultimately the power lines were built. Anyway, I'm sure
(24:33):
he'd say it was worth it, but it was not
without costs. So in the redacted FBI file, it says
reporting on his arrest, the arrest has prompted a growing,
well organized reaction in support of Read, including messages to
the President from the German youth organization demanding his release.
(24:55):
The media have publicized the solidarity as a genuine, spontaneous
outpouring of sympathy for Read for the entire republic. This
represents a small chunk of the FBI files about Dean Reid,
and I think in some ways it suggests Dean's power. I,
(25:16):
Ronald Reagan, do solemnly swear, I, Ronald Reagan, do solemnly
swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President
of the United States, that I will faithfully execute the
office of President of the United States. Back in Berlin,
Papa faced the increased East West tensions that came with
Reagan's presidency. We are witnessing today a great revolutionary crisis,
(25:40):
a crisis where the demands of the economic order are
conflicting directly with those of the political order. But the
crisis is happening not in the free, non Marxist West,
but in the home of Marxist Leninism, the Soviet Union,
and we know that there are even those who strive
(26:02):
and suffer for freedom within the confines of the Soul.
Union has shown. The thing with the Iron Curtain is
that it's pretty good at separating people and preventing people
from crossing from one side to the other. But what
you can't stop is the airwaves and music radio stations.
(26:26):
And that meant that those in the East were aware
of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones. There was a real
threat to the Soviet political line, and the Soviets found
Indean read a kind of a golden head. He was safe,
he was politically aligned, and he could espouse the things
(26:48):
and confirm the things that the Soviet government had been
saying all along, and that was a very very powerful
weapon in the arsenal of the Soviet Union. To me,
it's not a business. To me, it's a cause. And
I used my guitar as a rifle, I hope. I
think Dean enjoyed the benefits of the Soviets needing a
(27:11):
Western rock star Papa's friend Neil Jacobs. It was very
advantageous for them to find somebody like Dean who could
be a socialist and a rock star and look very American.
I think he probably knew to some degree that he
was being used, but maybe in his mind the ends
justified the means. He says that Soviet system was not
(27:32):
the kind of socialism that he want in every country
had to determine their own socialism. Dean wrote a soul
that was called we Are the Revolutionaries. That soul was
(27:59):
the bunch in the face of what he saw as
imperialists and the people who held back the rest of
the people from equality. That song was very well accepted
in Russia. That song was played on tape recorders across
the whole Soviet Union, all the country, and it was
(28:31):
one of the most beautiful songs I think he's ever written.
In particular, we Are the Revolutionaries was one of his
more successful protest songs, and eventually I think we would
come back to haunt him once people in the United
States heard this, or that he was going to have
a hard time coming back to America. I would suspect
(28:52):
on the next episode of Red Office, when you're somebody
of Dean reads celebrity and status in the East, you
are going to be approached by the secret police and
Dean read was by the Stasi. There are people injected
in his surroundings that our informants for the Stasi and
deliver information on where he's going, what he's doing. Of
(29:14):
the Eastern Bloc was changing. It felt like, after seventy
years of life, the old Man Communism was basically taking
its last brow. I think every person who lives in
exile in a foreign country gets homesick. I would love
to speak my language again. Yes, I really missed my people.
(29:44):
Red Elvis is a co production of I Heart Podcasts
and School of Humans, based on the Curiosity Stream documentary
Red Elvis the Cold or Cowboy, directed by Thomas Ladder
and produced by Tallis Films. Check out the doc at
curiosity stream dot com to learn more about Dean and
Nemona and to watch his performances from all over the world.
This show is hosted, co written, and executive produced by
(30:06):
Ramona Reid, Jason English, Virginia Prescott, Brendan Barr and L. C.
Crowley are executive producers. Ryan Murdoch is the co writer
and senior producer. Jessica Metzger is the senior producer. Jeremy
Thall That's Me is our editor. Fact checking by Savannah
Hugeley and Adam Bisno. This episode was mixed and mastered
by Zubin Hensler Thomas Ladder as consulting producer. Dean Read
(30:29):
is voiced by Mark Valley. Patty Read is voiced by
Nicole Britton. Casting support services provided by Breakdown Services. Additional
voices provided by Fabian Verfel. Music licensing by John Luongo
for Trector Entertainment. Additional music by Zuban Hendler, Jeremy Thall
and Ross Bell and WAP narration recorded at JTB Studios,
(30:50):
Los Angeles. Special thanks to John Higgins with Curiosity Stream.
If you're enjoying the show, leave a review in your
favorite podcast app. Check out the Curiosity Audio Network for
podcasts covering history, pop culture, true crime, and more. M
h At a house we called Casa de Romona. I
(31:14):
wanted to roll my arms. It didn't work. Ramona School
of Humans
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