December 7, 2022 • 31 mins
Decades after singer Dean Reed's mysterious death, his daughter Ramona digs through a treasure trove of documents left behind by her mother to learn more about the man she called Papa...and to figure out what really happened to him.
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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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Oh, Berlin, twentieth of August. Dear May, I hope that
you are in good health and high spirits when this
letter reaches you. I want to thank you so much
for paying for Ramona's trip here. It was a once
in a lifetime occasion for both of us. I liked
(00:27):
Ramona very much as a human being. I was scared
that it might not have turned out that way. I
am her father, but yet not her father. For the
past fifteen years I have had no influence upon her,
and of course she could have turned out much differently.
But she is a very sensitive, good human being. I
hope that she will have the time to tell you
(00:48):
all about the trip. That trip it was like a dream.
I was seventeen and living in an apartment in Beverly Hills.
Though I hadn't lived with Papa since I was a toddler,
he did write me letters often. He came back to
the US a few times, but it had been three
years since I last saw him. Colorado born, American bread
(01:13):
he now lives in East Berlin just because he likes
it better over there. An entertainer who has become the
Soviet version of a superstar. He sings, he acts, and
he speaks with what seems to be genuine conviction the
Soviet line. The trip was the summer before my senior
year of high school. I said goodbye to my mom
at the airport, flew to Germany. Met Papa's new wife, Renata.
(01:35):
Met my new stepbrother, Sasha, who was a little younger
than me. I stayed at his beautiful lake house for
a couple of weeks when swimming and water skiing, met
some of Papa's friends, and spent time with my house sister.
Then it was on to Moscow. On the fight over,
I noticed people staring, quiet murmurs back and forth. I
(01:59):
looked around me, and then someone came up to Papa,
said that they were a huge fan and asked for
his autograph. Papa spoke to him in German. This was
all new to me. When we got off the plane,
a group of men in military uniforms rushed us through
(02:20):
a tunnel beneath the airport. They were speaking Russian. Papa
held my hand. We jumped into a car driven by
a couple of guys in suits. There was a mob
of fans outside. Apparently, I thought, well, that was different.
It was a whirlwind trip eight days full of ceremonies, interviews,
(02:41):
lots of handshaking. Papa performed in Gorky Park, kind of
like Central Park, but with Soviet architecture. It was the
first time I had seen him in concert. I was
standing on the side of the stage, dancing and clapping
with thousands of screaming fans doing the same. I was
totally caught up in the whole scene. To see him
(03:03):
perform and work the crowd. It was so fun. When
we had free time, Papa would show me around Moscow.
We saw a ballet at the Bullshoy Theater, saw the
Eternal Flame. One night, after a security left, Papa took
me to Red Square. We stomped in the middle of
the square and he said hold on wait. Before I
(03:26):
knew it, we were surrounded. People came from everywhere. It
was crazy. They made a circle around Papa, all clamoring
for an autograph. I was pushed aside. I was so scared.
I couldn't understand the language, and all of a sudden
I couldn't even get to my Papa. But Papa was calm.
(03:47):
He called to some guys in uniforms and pointed at me,
saying dotyka dotyka, which means daughter in Russian. They brought
me back into the circle. Papa grabbed my hand, put
on his million dollar smile, and then signed as many
autographs as he could. We were there for what felt
like hours. We were ushered back to the hotel, where
(04:08):
from the top of the grand staircase Papaul yelled out
in Russian thank you and gave a peace sign to
the huge crowd down below. He told me for the
rest of the trip to just stay close. We'll be fine.
The police will watch out for you and I. It
was exciting, but exhausting and a little scary. I was
(04:29):
happy to go back to the hotel and just how
some alone time. I turned on the TV, flipping through
the channels, trying to find something in English. I stopped
cold at a news report there. Oh my god, it
was a picture of me. The reporter said something in
(04:50):
Russian about Dean Reads Georgeka. That was the one word
I did know. They were announcing my arrival here in Moscow.
I was in the news just for being Papa's daughter.
I knew he was famous or something, but nothing like this.
Dean Read is one of the most extraordinary and important
(05:13):
Cold War characters you've never heard of. He was a
pop star, he was a musician, he was an actor,
and he was a Communist revolutionary. Well, Dean was referred
to as the Red Elvis, or the Johnny Cash of communism,
or Frank Sinata of the Soviet Union. None of him
really fit exactly. He was his own person. Dean Reid
(05:36):
was a incredibly handsome guy. I mean, like ridiculously handsome guy.
He went off and became a superstar as an American
rock star behind the Iron Curtain, and I would love
to make a movie about that guy. Yes, that is
Tom Hanks if you were wondering. In a recent online
interview with Collider talking about how much he loves my
(06:00):
dad's story. Anyway back, I spent a few more weeks
with Papa and Berlin before I flew back home to California.
We bonded over everything, horseback riding, racing, motorcycles. We're both
competitors at heart. He liked that I was independent and
strong minded like my mom, and not afraid to try
(06:21):
new things. Papa told me about his big plans. He
wanted to come back home to the States. There is
just one thing missing for him. He yearns to duplicate
his success behind the Iron Curtain with a similar success
back home. I was excited by the idea of having
Papa so close, living in the same country together for
(06:42):
the first time in my life. I imagine what it
would be like for him to walk me down the
aisle someday. And then the unthinkable happened. My father walked
into the room. He looked at me and he said,
Dean Reid died. I ran out of the house and
(07:06):
I still hear my grandmother's voice that screamed after me,
where are you going? And I ran and I ran
until I couldn't run anymore. And then I fell into
the sand and they cried, and I cried for so long.
(07:26):
Love your brother, but hate your anna. I'm a gonna
read and this is read of us. Are you to
think that peace and love with just say hey? And
I learned the life is not only a gay hate.
(07:49):
Each man must fight and fight a game. But never, never,
never let your life just flow away, hat Let your
life have value. Every day episode had one country boy.
(08:10):
The next time I was in Berlin was for Papa's funeral.
I flew out with my mom. We were assigned a
driver and interpreter who stayed with us the entire time.
At the church, I remember getting out of the car.
In front of us was a huge wall with iron gates.
(08:33):
I could hear low murmurs coming from the other side.
I looked around. My mom was gone. She'd been whisked
to the front of the procession. It felt like Red
Square again, but without Papa to look out for me.
A woman and a man I didn't know gravid each
(08:55):
arm and we all started to walk. When I passed
through the gates, I saw rows and rows of people
lining the long road, crying in mourning. The sound was deafening.
It was a complete nightmare. I lost my footing and
almost passed out. The two strangers on each side helped
(09:19):
me up. I thought, who the funk are these two people?
And where the hell is my mom? I just wanted
to escape. I just wanted to get out of there.
In the church, some of Papa's friends and families said
a few words. I couldn't focus really. Speakers relayed the
(09:40):
speeches to the crowd outside. Then they played a recording
of give me a guitar, Ye Love Room, the room,
no room, and let me sing with my Pree. The
(10:10):
whole thing felt like a bad movie. Men in suits
shuffled us around, telling us what to do and where
to go. Dark shadows looming everywhere, whispers people wearing sunglasses photographers,
but they weren't pressed. In fact, I don't remember seeing
or talking to any East German journalists that whole time.
(10:33):
The day before, my mom had gone to the morgue
to ide pa bos body. She was kept ten feet away,
his body behind glass. I didn't go. I stayed behind
with my brother Sasha. My mom came back to our
hotel room shaken at night. Mom cried hysterically, whispering through
(10:55):
phone calls with my step to head back in l A.
She feared for our safety, feared that the Stasi were
listening and watching everything we did. Dis can just people.
After I got back home to the US, I was wrecked.
I was numb, nothing and no one seemed real. The
(11:18):
American press, We're asking lots of questions, and I was
fearful that I would say or do something wrong, that
someone would come after me and kill me. Irrational, probably,
but what did I know. I've been in the middle
of finals when Papa died. I missed my high school, graduation,
for the funeral. I wanted normalcy. I wanted to go
(11:42):
right back to work, to get back to what I
was doing. But my mom became obsessed with Papa's death,
obsessed with finding answers, and she insisted that i'd be
part of the investigation. As his daughter. I had certain
rights that she didn't have as his ex wife. I
could help get the State Department involved, request record. She
(12:06):
wanted me to talk to the press. All I wanted
to do was find a way to move forward. I
was only eighteen, with a whole life ahead of me,
so eventually Mom took the lead and left me alone.
After my mom died in two thousand sixteen, I started
looking through her things, through the trunks and drawers where
(12:27):
she kept all her life's memories. I found thousands of
notes and journals and letters. We hired actors to read
some of them. Dear Patricia, today is Friday. I'm going
into my seventeenth day of prison. It is worse day
by day, and I am now alone in a cell.
He was going to use this last film for his
(12:50):
entrance into the USA. They did not like this. For years,
she had worked on investigation with my Grandma, Ruth, you
may be sure that I shall never stop looking for
details about Dean's death. Damn if I'll give in. Ruth
called on that Friday and Renata answered the telephone. I
(13:11):
said nothing was wrong. She was convinced the official story
didn't add up. Vibka changes subject police report, see the body.
It was foul play. If he left the house, he
would have gone to a hotel. Kg begon spy murder.
(13:38):
I had just turned fifty. I felt it was time
to stop running away from that pain. I needed answers.
I needed to know what happened. He'd always been my hero,
but to be honest, I didn't really know him. So
I dedicated two years to fully understand him, his beliefs,
his thought process and timeline. I reached out to the
(14:02):
Vendam Museum of the Cold War Era here in l A.
I spoke to Justin Jample, the founder and executive director.
I was surprised to hear that he knew exactly who
Papa was. Dean Reid was an exception to the rule
of the Cold War where you pick sides where you
lived in a binary world east versus West, and it's
(14:24):
really by exploring Dean Read's story that we understand the
differences between the systems. A few months ago, I took
an uber here in l A. My driver was from Russia.
He was maybe in his fifties, would have been a
teenager when my father was at the height of his fame.
So I asked him if he knew who Dean Reid
(14:45):
was Dean Reid, he said, I learned about Dean Read
in school. I was floored. He's been dead for over
thirty five years, and here I was worried he'd been forgotten.
And I have asked people from Russia and Poland and said,
do you are you familiar with the American singer actor
(15:05):
by the name of Dean Read? And I said, oh, yeah,
I did Read. He was huge. He was like the
American that we all knew the Berlin Well found more
than thirty years ago. I wondered if people still remember
Dean Read there too. We sent our producer Nicole to
find out. So, what's your name? My name is cast
whom name is Marcus Johannes Alex Grigo. Did you live
(15:29):
in East Berlin or West Berlin? I lived in East
berlind West Berlin. I lived in East Germany, East Germany
nearby Dreston. Can you tell me how old were you
in the Berlin Wold Fel. I was eleven years old,
almost eighteen. I was thirty one years old. Have you
ever heard of a man named Dean Reid. Yeah, I
think he was the eastern Elvis Wesley or something like that. Read.
(15:53):
I know lou Reid is Dean read the brother of
Lou Reid. He came from America gd R. I don't
know what the reason was for that, but he was
very famous in Germany as an singer and an actor,
and he had a very famous wife, but I don't
(16:15):
remember her name. Yes, I saw him in television and
it was something special because he came from America. It
was only one superstar and East Germany who came from America.
When I was a child, I watched the movies and
I saw him on the movie screen. Could you name
(16:36):
any song of his? I love your brother Together we
say yes, digets and figh in German. I appreciate his
political views for peace, freedom and that he stood up
for the rights of all people. I was still very
young when I met him. He was very formative for
my life. Do you know how he died. Oh, he died. No,
(17:01):
I didn't know that. It was a little bit mysterious
his death. But I don't know how he died. He
drowned into the lake to in the New York Vilain
and he died not normally. Nobody can say it exactly
because it was a Communist system and said not the truth.
(17:27):
To understand Papa, his life and his death, I knew
I'd have to go back to Colorado. Started at the beginning, Well,
there's Colorado ship and my Colorado is fine, okid. So
(18:03):
my uncle Deane grew up in a rural suburb of Denver, Colorado,
with his two brothers. My dad is his older brother Dale,
and then they had their younger brother, Verne. They get
my dad days. God, this is my cousin, Jim. My
(18:24):
name is Jim Reid. I'm Dean Reid's nephew, and my
dad is his older brother. I never really knew anyone
on Papa's side of the family. Jim and I only
became close in the last few years. When I reached out,
Jim was warm and welcoming. He knew a lot of
the family history, including details about Papa's parents, their mom
(18:45):
and dad, Cyril and ruth Anna were just very nice
home I think they had for the boys. My grandfather,
Cyril was a school teacher, so academics were very important
for all all three of the boys. They all did
very well in school. I got to hear all about
their great grades. Sometimes in comparison to my own, my
(19:07):
grandfather's Cyril he looms large and Papa's life. Their dad
Cyril read he was an interesting man. He had been
quite an athlete himself in his younger years, but had
lost a leg in a farming accident, so he actually
had an artificial leg, and none of the sons actually
even knew that till they were older, because he got
(19:29):
around so well, even though he was too proud to
admit it. Cyril's health was never great and he couldn't
afford to get the care he needed. You think that
might have led him to believe in government funded healthcare,
but in fact it was the opposite. My grandfather was
from the rural Midwest and believed in a very hard work,
(19:50):
good work, ethic politically, very conservative, didn't believe in any
kind of government handouts or you know, if you don't work,
you don't eat. And I got to hear all those
those cliches from my dad that were passed along. I
got the impression there was a pretty strict household and
they would tell whatever line that their dad probably laid
(20:10):
out for him. That didn't sit well with Papa. Dean
being the second born, he just he didn't follow the
rules quite as well. And you know, my dad felt
a little sorry for Dean sometimes because he was getting
the brunt of the discipline, and my grandfather was a
stern man, and my Dad didn't dare stand up to him.
The Dean would, and he faced the consequences for that. Nonetheless,
(20:35):
Cyril still love Papa, even bought him a guitar for
his twelfth birthday. And Papa's childhood in Colorado was in
a lot of ways idyllic. They also had just a
great outdoor space to ride horses and play cowboys and
Indians and they all did sports. So I think they
(20:56):
had a great childhood of growing up and learning to
work hard, play hard, and just kind of live in
the American dream. Dean and his brothers, they were immersed
in a culture that really promoted the Western lifestyle, and
cowboys were the good guys and they were battling the
Indians who were the bad guys and the big actors
of the day that John Waynes and the Ronald Reagan's
(21:19):
that played in the movies but lived a Western lifestyle themselves.
It was a big deal in America at the time.
As my dad Dale and uncle Dino became teenagers, they
both got jobs at a local dude ranch in Estes Park.
At the ranch, my father could show off his horse
riding skills to the tourists who came through. That's where
(21:39):
he learned to be a performer. And then in the
evening he's bringing out his guitar and he's singing cowboys songs,
the stuff that they've come to associate with. That's what
cowboys do. They sing to their cattle at night to
keep them calm. Jim's dad said that Papa had been
the shy brother, but music that gave him confidence. High
(22:00):
school music really became more important in his life, and
he just a lot. He even got some singing lessons
along the way, somewhere in there a coach to develop,
you know what was obviously an amazing voice that he
was naturally born with, and then it carried into into
his college years. They did not have a lot of money,
(22:20):
so to earn extra money to to pay tuition and
his boarding costs, he would take his guitar and play
and taverns and pubs in the evening. Now he's actually
playing foreign audience and he's getting paid for it, and
he's even starting to write some of his own music.
I mean, there's there's certain girls he's interested in, and
he's winning their hearts by writing songs for them, and
(22:41):
I think he probably found some success with that. Papa
was studying meteorology at college, a practical thing to do,
I suppose, but soon his passion for music took over.
So in early summer night, Uncle Dino got out of
college for the summer and got in his impolit convertible
unheaded for the West coast. You know, of course, had
(23:03):
his guitar with him. In Arizona, Papa picked up a hitchhiker.
He was traveling for a while and wanted some company.
The guy noticed the guitar and said he had a
contact that Papa could call it Capitol Records. A nice
gesture for picking him up, and he did it. He
went to Capitol, dropped his name. Apparently it carried some
(23:25):
weight and got him an addition, and within a few days,
the president of Capitol Records wanted to hear Dean play
a song and hear him sing, and before you know it,
he'd got a seven year record deal at Capitol Records.
I am happy and thrilled to announce that one of
our most distinguished alut nis with us tonight and we'll
(23:48):
seeing his latest hit recording Toorly Toorly. Let's have a
nice welcome back for Dean. I would do a football
game and little again, that pretty little, pretty little, pretty little,
pretty little prev made you read Capitol Records book my
dad as a guest star in a sitcom called Bachelor Father.
(24:11):
They also got him a gig on American Bandstand with
Dick Clark. They wanted the next Elvis. He was a
rock and roll singer, sure, but with my father's good looks,
he could be so much more. He signed a contract
deal with Warner Brothers. They gave him an acting coach.
Peyton Price, was a successful TV director shows like Maverick
(24:33):
se Sunset Strip, and he mentored new talent as well.
My father was twenty years old, bright eyed and bushy tailed,
new to this Hollywood game. Peyton and his wife took
him in. Literally, he moved in with them. It's in
their home. He learned to act, learn the workings of
the industry. But it was also more than that. Peyton
(24:54):
was a truth seeker and was open to talking about
all sorts of things. They go on to become confidence
for the rest of their lives. It was a relationship
Papa never had with his own father, a relationship that
he wanted so badly. Still, show business was show business.
Dean did not have success early on with the first
(25:15):
two records. Here's Papa's friend Neo Jacobs, and I think
his manager decided to sell his contract to a syndicate
of sorts, and they decided to tell him what to do,
tell him what to wear, tell him who to date,
and control his career. And I think he rebelled against that.
And Hollywood was Hollywood. Dean referred to Hollywood as as
(25:39):
a prostitution camp where a few people could maintain their integrity. Um,
he was very uncomfortable there. He had a bad experience,
and I think it's stuck with him the rest of
his life. This is going to put, I think we'll
play later into how he views America. Because here, here's
like the place where all these movies come from, and
it seems corrupt. And I think I had a big
(26:02):
effect on him. Here's justin again. He realizes that the
studios are really as they are, their businesses. Their businesses.
They sell movies, and they're also selling an American way
of life. And I think the realization that this was
not real, that the cowboy of his imagination was in
(26:26):
fact a product, and that product was all about trying
to sell something that didn't exist. Papa's first couple of records,
they were forty five singles. Basically, the songs were sweet, innocent, romantic,
kind of like the fifties. Everything was seen through rose
(26:48):
colored glasses. There's a dark side of America. I mean,
this is right after the end of World War Two
and the Red scare, the atomic bomb and soon the
hydrogen bomb. This is potentially the end of the world.
They're doing duck and cover drills in schools, people are
building bunkers in their backyard. I mean, these are times
(27:11):
of enormous threat to the existence of the world. So
all of these things converge in Dean Reid really is
a product of America in the nineteen fifties. But just
as the fifties came to a close and the spirit
of the sixties spread around the world, Papa's third single
(27:32):
found his way to a radio station in Chile. Although
to some ms, I'll try to carry on, although you
all be with me and went fool through. That song
changed Papa's life and it set him on the path
(27:54):
to become Red Elvis. At that time, I was recording
for a Capitol Recording company in Hollywood, and the third
record became the biggest hit of South America, and they
sent me down and tour of South America. This season
on Red Elvis it was like really like absolute pandemonial
(28:15):
and chaos. It was like Beatlemania, but two years before Beatlemania.
Dean Reed gets the idea that he's going to go
to the U. S. Embassy, alert all of the press,
and in front of it he washes an American flag
bunded an optimity cantons. This North American flag is dirty
(28:36):
with the blood of thousands of Vietnamese women and children
who have been burned alive by bombs of Naple. We
were a group in East Berlin of Americans. We were
always kind of exotic and Dean, of course, was the
most exotic of war. Don't work for the Soviet government.
I think you're you're more of our communist trader or
American trader because of your political playation in a pair
(28:59):
of twenty five years. These people, they do hurt me
because I'm not a trader. I believe I'm an America.
And here in his darkest hour, the friend he confides
and with his most terrible secret and life crisis, is
really an informant to the Stasi. It's very heartbreakings. I
(29:20):
waited under two third I Am for Geen j A Live.
Red Elvis is the 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
(29:44):
and produced by Talos Films. This show is hosted, co written,
and executive produced by Ramona Reid, Jason English, Virginia Prescott,
Brandon Barr and Elsie Crowley are executive producers. Ryan Murdoch
is the co writer and senior producer. Jessica Metzger is
the senior producer. Jeremy thal That's Me is our editor.
(30:04):
In fact checking by Savannah Hugely and Adam Bisno. This
episode was mixed and mastered by Zuban Hendler. Thomas Ladder
is consulting producer. Dean Read is voiced by Mark Valley.
Patty Read is voiced by Nicole Brittain. Casting support services
provided by Breakdown Services. Additional voices provided by Nicole Luhan,
Fabian Verefel, and Miranda Hawkins. Music licensing by John Luongo
(30:27):
for Tructor Entertainment. Sound designed by Jeremy Thalan Zuban Hendler.
Additional music by Jeremy thal Zuban Hendler, and Ross Bell
and wat Narration recorded at JTB Studios, Los Angeles. Special
thanks to John Higgins with Curiosity Stream and the team
over at Collider for letting us share part of their
conversation with Tom Hanks. If you're enjoying the show, leave
(30:48):
a review in your favorite podcast app. Check out the
Curiosity Audio Network for podcast covering history, pop culture, true crime,
and more. Love Your Brother, Danta, School of Humans
Oh, Berlin, twentieth of August. Dear May, I hope that
you are in good health and high spirits when this
letter reaches you. I want to thank you so much
for paying for Ramona's trip here. It was a once
in a lifetime occasion for both of us. I liked
(00:27):
Ramona very much as a human being. I was scared
that it might not have turned out that way. I
am her father, but yet not her father. For the
past fifteen years I have had no influence upon her,
and of course she could have turned out much differently.
But she is a very sensitive, good human being. I
hope that she will have the time to tell you
(00:48):
all about the trip. That trip it was like a dream.
I was seventeen and living in an apartment in Beverly Hills.
Though I hadn't lived with Papa since I was a toddler,
he did write me letters often. He came back to
the US a few times, but it had been three
years since I last saw him. Colorado born, American bread
(01:13):
he now lives in East Berlin just because he likes
it better over there. An entertainer who has become the
Soviet version of a superstar. He sings, he acts, and
he speaks with what seems to be genuine conviction the
Soviet line. The trip was the summer before my senior
year of high school. I said goodbye to my mom
at the airport, flew to Germany. Met Papa's new wife, Renata.
(01:35):
Met my new stepbrother, Sasha, who was a little younger
than me. I stayed at his beautiful lake house for
a couple of weeks when swimming and water skiing, met
some of Papa's friends, and spent time with my house sister.
Then it was on to Moscow. On the fight over,
I noticed people staring, quiet murmurs back and forth. I
(01:59):
looked around me, and then someone came up to Papa,
said that they were a huge fan and asked for
his autograph. Papa spoke to him in German. This was
all new to me. When we got off the plane,
a group of men in military uniforms rushed us through
(02:20):
a tunnel beneath the airport. They were speaking Russian. Papa
held my hand. We jumped into a car driven by
a couple of guys in suits. There was a mob
of fans outside. Apparently, I thought, well, that was different.
It was a whirlwind trip eight days full of ceremonies, interviews,
(02:41):
lots of handshaking. Papa performed in Gorky Park, kind of
like Central Park, but with Soviet architecture. It was the
first time I had seen him in concert. I was
standing on the side of the stage, dancing and clapping
with thousands of screaming fans doing the same. I was
totally caught up in the whole scene. To see him
(03:03):
perform and work the crowd. It was so fun. When
we had free time, Papa would show me around Moscow.
We saw a ballet at the Bullshoy Theater, saw the
Eternal Flame. One night, after a security left, Papa took
me to Red Square. We stomped in the middle of
the square and he said hold on wait. Before I
(03:26):
knew it, we were surrounded. People came from everywhere. It
was crazy. They made a circle around Papa, all clamoring
for an autograph. I was pushed aside. I was so scared.
I couldn't understand the language, and all of a sudden
I couldn't even get to my Papa. But Papa was calm.
(03:47):
He called to some guys in uniforms and pointed at me,
saying dotyka dotyka, which means daughter in Russian. They brought
me back into the circle. Papa grabbed my hand, put
on his million dollar smile, and then signed as many
autographs as he could. We were there for what felt
like hours. We were ushered back to the hotel, where
(04:08):
from the top of the grand staircase Papaul yelled out
in Russian thank you and gave a peace sign to
the huge crowd down below. He told me for the
rest of the trip to just stay close. We'll be fine.
The police will watch out for you and I. It
was exciting, but exhausting and a little scary. I was
(04:29):
happy to go back to the hotel and just how
some alone time. I turned on the TV, flipping through
the channels, trying to find something in English. I stopped
cold at a news report there. Oh my god, it
was a picture of me. The reporter said something in
(04:50):
Russian about Dean Reads Georgeka. That was the one word
I did know. They were announcing my arrival here in Moscow.
I was in the news just for being Papa's daughter.
I knew he was famous or something, but nothing like this.
Dean Read is one of the most extraordinary and important
(05:13):
Cold War characters you've never heard of. He was a
pop star, he was a musician, he was an actor,
and he was a Communist revolutionary. Well, Dean was referred
to as the Red Elvis, or the Johnny Cash of communism,
or Frank Sinata of the Soviet Union. None of him
really fit exactly. He was his own person. Dean Reid
(05:36):
was a incredibly handsome guy. I mean, like ridiculously handsome guy.
He went off and became a superstar as an American
rock star behind the Iron Curtain, and I would love
to make a movie about that guy. Yes, that is
Tom Hanks if you were wondering. In a recent online
interview with Collider talking about how much he loves my
(06:00):
dad's story. Anyway back, I spent a few more weeks
with Papa and Berlin before I flew back home to California.
We bonded over everything, horseback riding, racing, motorcycles. We're both
competitors at heart. He liked that I was independent and
strong minded like my mom, and not afraid to try
(06:21):
new things. Papa told me about his big plans. He
wanted to come back home to the States. There is
just one thing missing for him. He yearns to duplicate
his success behind the Iron Curtain with a similar success
back home. I was excited by the idea of having
Papa so close, living in the same country together for
(06:42):
the first time in my life. I imagine what it
would be like for him to walk me down the
aisle someday. And then the unthinkable happened. My father walked
into the room. He looked at me and he said,
Dean Reid died. I ran out of the house and
(07:06):
I still hear my grandmother's voice that screamed after me,
where are you going? And I ran and I ran
until I couldn't run anymore. And then I fell into
the sand and they cried, and I cried for so long.
(07:26):
Love your brother, but hate your anna. I'm a gonna
read and this is read of us. Are you to
think that peace and love with just say hey? And
I learned the life is not only a gay hate.
(07:49):
Each man must fight and fight a game. But never, never,
never let your life just flow away, hat Let your
life have value. Every day episode had one country boy.
(08:10):
The next time I was in Berlin was for Papa's funeral.
I flew out with my mom. We were assigned a
driver and interpreter who stayed with us the entire time.
At the church, I remember getting out of the car.
In front of us was a huge wall with iron gates.
(08:33):
I could hear low murmurs coming from the other side.
I looked around. My mom was gone. She'd been whisked
to the front of the procession. It felt like Red
Square again, but without Papa to look out for me.
A woman and a man I didn't know gravid each
(08:55):
arm and we all started to walk. When I passed
through the gates, I saw rows and rows of people
lining the long road, crying in mourning. The sound was deafening.
It was a complete nightmare. I lost my footing and
almost passed out. The two strangers on each side helped
(09:19):
me up. I thought, who the funk are these two people?
And where the hell is my mom? I just wanted
to escape. I just wanted to get out of there.
In the church, some of Papa's friends and families said
a few words. I couldn't focus really. Speakers relayed the
(09:40):
speeches to the crowd outside. Then they played a recording
of give me a guitar, Ye Love Room, the room,
no room, and let me sing with my Pree. The
(10:10):
whole thing felt like a bad movie. Men in suits
shuffled us around, telling us what to do and where
to go. Dark shadows looming everywhere, whispers people wearing sunglasses photographers,
but they weren't pressed. In fact, I don't remember seeing
or talking to any East German journalists that whole time.
(10:33):
The day before, my mom had gone to the morgue
to ide pa bos body. She was kept ten feet away,
his body behind glass. I didn't go. I stayed behind
with my brother Sasha. My mom came back to our
hotel room shaken at night. Mom cried hysterically, whispering through
(10:55):
phone calls with my step to head back in l A.
She feared for our safety, feared that the Stasi were
listening and watching everything we did. Dis can just people.
After I got back home to the US, I was wrecked.
I was numb, nothing and no one seemed real. The
(11:18):
American press, We're asking lots of questions, and I was
fearful that I would say or do something wrong, that
someone would come after me and kill me. Irrational, probably,
but what did I know. I've been in the middle
of finals when Papa died. I missed my high school, graduation,
for the funeral. I wanted normalcy. I wanted to go
(11:42):
right back to work, to get back to what I
was doing. But my mom became obsessed with Papa's death,
obsessed with finding answers, and she insisted that i'd be
part of the investigation. As his daughter. I had certain
rights that she didn't have as his ex wife. I
could help get the State Department involved, request record. She
(12:06):
wanted me to talk to the press. All I wanted
to do was find a way to move forward. I
was only eighteen, with a whole life ahead of me,
so eventually Mom took the lead and left me alone.
After my mom died in two thousand sixteen, I started
looking through her things, through the trunks and drawers where
(12:27):
she kept all her life's memories. I found thousands of
notes and journals and letters. We hired actors to read
some of them. Dear Patricia, today is Friday. I'm going
into my seventeenth day of prison. It is worse day
by day, and I am now alone in a cell.
He was going to use this last film for his
(12:50):
entrance into the USA. They did not like this. For years,
she had worked on investigation with my Grandma, Ruth, you
may be sure that I shall never stop looking for
details about Dean's death. Damn if I'll give in. Ruth
called on that Friday and Renata answered the telephone. I
(13:11):
said nothing was wrong. She was convinced the official story
didn't add up. Vibka changes subject police report, see the body.
It was foul play. If he left the house, he
would have gone to a hotel. Kg begon spy murder.
(13:38):
I had just turned fifty. I felt it was time
to stop running away from that pain. I needed answers.
I needed to know what happened. He'd always been my hero,
but to be honest, I didn't really know him. So
I dedicated two years to fully understand him, his beliefs,
his thought process and timeline. I reached out to the
(14:02):
Vendam Museum of the Cold War Era here in l A.
I spoke to Justin Jample, the founder and executive director.
I was surprised to hear that he knew exactly who
Papa was. Dean Reid was an exception to the rule
of the Cold War where you pick sides where you
lived in a binary world east versus West, and it's
(14:24):
really by exploring Dean Read's story that we understand the
differences between the systems. A few months ago, I took
an uber here in l A. My driver was from Russia.
He was maybe in his fifties, would have been a
teenager when my father was at the height of his fame.
So I asked him if he knew who Dean Reid
(14:45):
was Dean Reid, he said, I learned about Dean Read
in school. I was floored. He's been dead for over
thirty five years, and here I was worried he'd been forgotten.
And I have asked people from Russia and Poland and said,
do you are you familiar with the American singer actor
(15:05):
by the name of Dean Read? And I said, oh, yeah,
I did Read. He was huge. He was like the
American that we all knew the Berlin Well found more
than thirty years ago. I wondered if people still remember
Dean Read there too. We sent our producer Nicole to
find out. So, what's your name? My name is cast
whom name is Marcus Johannes Alex Grigo. Did you live
(15:29):
in East Berlin or West Berlin? I lived in East
berlind West Berlin. I lived in East Germany, East Germany
nearby Dreston. Can you tell me how old were you
in the Berlin Wold Fel. I was eleven years old,
almost eighteen. I was thirty one years old. Have you
ever heard of a man named Dean Reid. Yeah, I
think he was the eastern Elvis Wesley or something like that. Read.
(15:53):
I know lou Reid is Dean read the brother of
Lou Reid. He came from America gd R. I don't
know what the reason was for that, but he was
very famous in Germany as an singer and an actor,
and he had a very famous wife, but I don't
(16:15):
remember her name. Yes, I saw him in television and
it was something special because he came from America. It
was only one superstar and East Germany who came from America.
When I was a child, I watched the movies and
I saw him on the movie screen. Could you name
(16:36):
any song of his? I love your brother Together we
say yes, digets and figh in German. I appreciate his
political views for peace, freedom and that he stood up
for the rights of all people. I was still very
young when I met him. He was very formative for
my life. Do you know how he died. Oh, he died. No,
(17:01):
I didn't know that. It was a little bit mysterious
his death. But I don't know how he died. He
drowned into the lake to in the New York Vilain
and he died not normally. Nobody can say it exactly
because it was a Communist system and said not the truth.
(17:27):
To understand Papa, his life and his death, I knew
I'd have to go back to Colorado. Started at the beginning, Well,
there's Colorado ship and my Colorado is fine, okid. So
(18:03):
my uncle Deane grew up in a rural suburb of Denver, Colorado,
with his two brothers. My dad is his older brother Dale,
and then they had their younger brother, Verne. They get
my dad days. God, this is my cousin, Jim. My
(18:24):
name is Jim Reid. I'm Dean Reid's nephew, and my
dad is his older brother. I never really knew anyone
on Papa's side of the family. Jim and I only
became close in the last few years. When I reached out,
Jim was warm and welcoming. He knew a lot of
the family history, including details about Papa's parents, their mom
(18:45):
and dad, Cyril and ruth Anna were just very nice
home I think they had for the boys. My grandfather,
Cyril was a school teacher, so academics were very important
for all all three of the boys. They all did
very well in school. I got to hear all about
their great grades. Sometimes in comparison to my own, my
(19:07):
grandfather's Cyril he looms large and Papa's life. Their dad
Cyril read he was an interesting man. He had been
quite an athlete himself in his younger years, but had
lost a leg in a farming accident, so he actually
had an artificial leg, and none of the sons actually
even knew that till they were older, because he got
(19:29):
around so well, even though he was too proud to
admit it. Cyril's health was never great and he couldn't
afford to get the care he needed. You think that
might have led him to believe in government funded healthcare,
but in fact it was the opposite. My grandfather was
from the rural Midwest and believed in a very hard work,
(19:50):
good work, ethic politically, very conservative, didn't believe in any
kind of government handouts or you know, if you don't work,
you don't eat. And I got to hear all those
those cliches from my dad that were passed along. I
got the impression there was a pretty strict household and
they would tell whatever line that their dad probably laid
(20:10):
out for him. That didn't sit well with Papa. Dean
being the second born, he just he didn't follow the
rules quite as well. And you know, my dad felt
a little sorry for Dean sometimes because he was getting
the brunt of the discipline, and my grandfather was a
stern man, and my Dad didn't dare stand up to him.
The Dean would, and he faced the consequences for that. Nonetheless,
(20:35):
Cyril still love Papa, even bought him a guitar for
his twelfth birthday. And Papa's childhood in Colorado was in
a lot of ways idyllic. They also had just a
great outdoor space to ride horses and play cowboys and
Indians and they all did sports. So I think they
(20:56):
had a great childhood of growing up and learning to
work hard, play hard, and just kind of live in
the American dream. Dean and his brothers, they were immersed
in a culture that really promoted the Western lifestyle, and
cowboys were the good guys and they were battling the
Indians who were the bad guys and the big actors
of the day that John Waynes and the Ronald Reagan's
(21:19):
that played in the movies but lived a Western lifestyle themselves.
It was a big deal in America at the time.
As my dad Dale and uncle Dino became teenagers, they
both got jobs at a local dude ranch in Estes Park.
At the ranch, my father could show off his horse
riding skills to the tourists who came through. That's where
(21:39):
he learned to be a performer. And then in the
evening he's bringing out his guitar and he's singing cowboys songs,
the stuff that they've come to associate with. That's what
cowboys do. They sing to their cattle at night to
keep them calm. Jim's dad said that Papa had been
the shy brother, but music that gave him confidence. High
(22:00):
school music really became more important in his life, and
he just a lot. He even got some singing lessons
along the way, somewhere in there a coach to develop,
you know what was obviously an amazing voice that he
was naturally born with, and then it carried into into
his college years. They did not have a lot of money,
(22:20):
so to earn extra money to to pay tuition and
his boarding costs, he would take his guitar and play
and taverns and pubs in the evening. Now he's actually
playing foreign audience and he's getting paid for it, and
he's even starting to write some of his own music.
I mean, there's there's certain girls he's interested in, and
he's winning their hearts by writing songs for them, and
(22:41):
I think he probably found some success with that. Papa
was studying meteorology at college, a practical thing to do,
I suppose, but soon his passion for music took over.
So in early summer night, Uncle Dino got out of
college for the summer and got in his impolit convertible
unheaded for the West coast. You know, of course, had
(23:03):
his guitar with him. In Arizona, Papa picked up a hitchhiker.
He was traveling for a while and wanted some company.
The guy noticed the guitar and said he had a
contact that Papa could call it Capitol Records. A nice
gesture for picking him up, and he did it. He
went to Capitol, dropped his name. Apparently it carried some
(23:25):
weight and got him an addition, and within a few days,
the president of Capitol Records wanted to hear Dean play
a song and hear him sing, and before you know it,
he'd got a seven year record deal at Capitol Records.
I am happy and thrilled to announce that one of
our most distinguished alut nis with us tonight and we'll
(23:48):
seeing his latest hit recording Toorly Toorly. Let's have a
nice welcome back for Dean. I would do a football
game and little again, that pretty little, pretty little, pretty little,
pretty little prev made you read Capitol Records book my
dad as a guest star in a sitcom called Bachelor Father.
(24:11):
They also got him a gig on American Bandstand with
Dick Clark. They wanted the next Elvis. He was a
rock and roll singer, sure, but with my father's good looks,
he could be so much more. He signed a contract
deal with Warner Brothers. They gave him an acting coach.
Peyton Price, was a successful TV director shows like Maverick
(24:33):
se Sunset Strip, and he mentored new talent as well.
My father was twenty years old, bright eyed and bushy tailed,
new to this Hollywood game. Peyton and his wife took
him in. Literally, he moved in with them. It's in
their home. He learned to act, learn the workings of
the industry. But it was also more than that. Peyton
(24:54):
was a truth seeker and was open to talking about
all sorts of things. They go on to become confidence
for the rest of their lives. It was a relationship
Papa never had with his own father, a relationship that
he wanted so badly. Still, show business was show business.
Dean did not have success early on with the first
(25:15):
two records. Here's Papa's friend Neo Jacobs, and I think
his manager decided to sell his contract to a syndicate
of sorts, and they decided to tell him what to do,
tell him what to wear, tell him who to date,
and control his career. And I think he rebelled against that.
And Hollywood was Hollywood. Dean referred to Hollywood as as
(25:39):
a prostitution camp where a few people could maintain their integrity. Um,
he was very uncomfortable there. He had a bad experience,
and I think it's stuck with him the rest of
his life. This is going to put, I think we'll
play later into how he views America. Because here, here's
like the place where all these movies come from, and
it seems corrupt. And I think I had a big
(26:02):
effect on him. Here's justin again. He realizes that the
studios are really as they are, their businesses. Their businesses.
They sell movies, and they're also selling an American way
of life. And I think the realization that this was
not real, that the cowboy of his imagination was in
(26:26):
fact a product, and that product was all about trying
to sell something that didn't exist. Papa's first couple of records,
they were forty five singles. Basically, the songs were sweet, innocent, romantic,
kind of like the fifties. Everything was seen through rose
(26:48):
colored glasses. There's a dark side of America. I mean,
this is right after the end of World War Two
and the Red scare, the atomic bomb and soon the
hydrogen bomb. This is potentially the end of the world.
They're doing duck and cover drills in schools, people are
building bunkers in their backyard. I mean, these are times
(27:11):
of enormous threat to the existence of the world. So
all of these things converge in Dean Reid really is
a product of America in the nineteen fifties. But just
as the fifties came to a close and the spirit
of the sixties spread around the world, Papa's third single
(27:32):
found his way to a radio station in Chile. Although
to some ms, I'll try to carry on, although you
all be with me and went fool through. That song
changed Papa's life and it set him on the path
(27:54):
to become Red Elvis. At that time, I was recording
for a Capitol Recording company in Hollywood, and the third
record became the biggest hit of South America, and they
sent me down and tour of South America. This season
on Red Elvis it was like really like absolute pandemonial
(28:15):
and chaos. It was like Beatlemania, but two years before Beatlemania.
Dean Reed gets the idea that he's going to go
to the U. S. Embassy, alert all of the press,
and in front of it he washes an American flag
bunded an optimity cantons. This North American flag is dirty
(28:36):
with the blood of thousands of Vietnamese women and children
who have been burned alive by bombs of Naple. We
were a group in East Berlin of Americans. We were
always kind of exotic and Dean, of course, was the
most exotic of war. Don't work for the Soviet government.
I think you're you're more of our communist trader or
American trader because of your political playation in a pair
(28:59):
of twenty five years. These people, they do hurt me
because I'm not a trader. I believe I'm an America.
And here in his darkest hour, the friend he confides
and with his most terrible secret and life crisis, is
really an informant to the Stasi. It's very heartbreakings. I
(29:20):
waited under two third I Am for Geen j A Live.
Red Elvis is the 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
(29:44):
and produced by Talos Films. This show is hosted, co written,
and executive produced by Ramona Reid, Jason English, Virginia Prescott,
Brandon Barr and Elsie Crowley are executive producers. Ryan Murdoch
is the co writer and senior producer. Jessica Metzger is
the senior producer. Jeremy thal That's Me is our editor.
(30:04):
In fact checking by Savannah Hugely and Adam Bisno. This
episode was mixed and mastered by Zuban Hendler. Thomas Ladder
is consulting producer. Dean Read is voiced by Mark Valley.
Patty Read is voiced by Nicole Brittain. Casting support services
provided by Breakdown Services. Additional voices provided by Nicole Luhan,
Fabian Verefel, and Miranda Hawkins. Music licensing by John Luongo
(30:27):
for Tructor Entertainment. Sound designed by Jeremy Thalan Zuban Hendler.
Additional music by Jeremy thal Zuban Hendler, and Ross Bell
and wat Narration recorded at JTB Studios, Los Angeles. Special
thanks to John Higgins with Curiosity Stream and the team
over at Collider for letting us share part of their
conversation with Tom Hanks. If you're enjoying the show, leave
(30:48):
a review in your favorite podcast app. Check out the
Curiosity Audio Network for podcast covering history, pop culture, true crime,
and more. Love Your Brother, Danta, School of Humans
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