Red Elvis: Episode Three - Adiós, Sabata

Dean and Patti relocate to Italy, where Dean emerges as a spaghetti western film star. But after his daughter Ramona is born, he inserts himself back into the political fray in Chile and Argentina, landing him in jail and his marriage in crisis.

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

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Oh My Papa loved westerns as a kid growing up
in Colorado, he always dressed up as a cowboy. It's
John Wayne is Ethan Edwards who had a rare kind

(00:27):
of courage. He looked up to John Wayne and Roy Rogers.
Want me to do dry your picture? Spell it out.
Papa had taken some acting roles as a cowboy early
in his career. When Mom and Papa left Argentina, spaghetti
westerns were a booming business, and even though they were
filmed in Italy, they featured some of the biggest Hollywood

(00:47):
stars of the day. You'll run her as Saba, my
father scored a role alongside Academy Award winner You'll Brenner.
It's no wonder he always wears black. Papa and You'll
didn't quite it along. Though You'll had a reputation as

(01:08):
a bit of a diva. He often clashed with his
co stars, including famously Steve McQueen on the set of
Magnificent Seven. During the filming of Audio Sabata, You kept himself,
but Papa made friends with everyone on set, his co stars,
the crew, their families. He was a man of the people,

(01:29):
just like he'd been in South America. Here's Papa's friend,
Victor Grossman. Dean was quite successful making these Italian westerns
that called spaghetti westerns, including one with Ule Brenner. He
told me some funny stories. He told me how in
a small company making a film with him didn't pay
their crew properly. He said he worked out secretly with

(01:51):
the crew having them kidnap him. So he let them
kidnap him and they wouldn't let him free until they
got their pay. He really fought for their rights there.
He was always conscious of working people in the film cruise,
not only actors and the directors, but the ones doing
the hard work. You think, maybe you'll and my Dad
I could find some calmon ground. After all, you was

(02:14):
born in Russia and was probably the most famous Russian
in America at the time, and Papa had befriended lots
of famous Russians, the cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova and Leviashin, the
goalie of the Soviet Union's national soccer team Live by
the Way, got my dad into his first bit of
trouble with the U. S Government when my dad invited

(02:36):
the whole Soviet soccer team to attend one of his concerts.
He almost got his American passport revoked, but my dad
smoothed it over, as he always seemed to do. He'd
been allowed to continue touring and had moved to Italy
with my mom. But you know, Brenner didn't care for
any of that. He was an American icon, forget the Motherland.

(03:00):
My dad was happy to be in a potentially big movie.
But one day on said, I don't really know how
it started. You're whispered to Papa. You call me bastard.
Love your brother, but hate your Anna. I'm Ramona Rie

(03:24):
and this is right of us? Are you soon think
that peace and love with just say hey? And I
learned the life is not only a gay hate. Each
man must fight and fight a game and never, never,
never let your life just flow away. Eight Let your

(03:45):
life have value of every day. Episode three audio. Sabata
I recently found in my mom's journal a list of
names she and Papa were considering for a baby. This
was back in sixty four. They had moved to Argentina
that year. Their first pick for a girl was Donia

(04:08):
Jermaine Read, named after Sophia Laurin's character in the film Elsid.
The first choice for a boy was Peyton Rome read
after my father's acting mentor Peyton Price. They never had
a baby in Argentina, though it would be three more
years of trying unsuccessfully as they traveled around South America.

(04:30):
It was really hard for my mom, who was growing
more and more insecure. But in Rome on May two,
in I came along Ramona Shamaine Gavada Price Read. They
kept Shamayne from the list all those years ago, and

(04:51):
you know already about Gevada And a letter Papa wrote
to me a few days after I was born, he explained,
my first name Ramona. Ramona will remind you that your
ancestors from your mother's side were the only true Americans
of our country. It will remind you of their brave
and courageous fight that your people gave when defending their land.

(05:13):
My mom believed she had Cherokee heritage, so the name
Ramona came from a story of a brave Native American woman.
But Paul's beliefs had changed. No longer was John Wayne
and the White Man the moral hero in American history.
In audio Sabata, Papa played a character referred to as
the Green Do When he went by the book So

(05:39):
Did You, My father played a kind of Robin Hood character,
stealing from the Austrian army when they ruled the Mexican
Empire in the eighteen hundreds. In real life in nineteen
sixty nine in Italy, Papa needed the work, needed the money.
He was filming movies all the time while Mom was
at home with me. Her family was in California, so

(06:01):
she had little help. Old Italian grandmother's from my Piazza
would sometimes look out for me when my mom had
to run errands. I had a babysitter named Anne. She
became a good friend to my mom. Over the years,
they stayed in touch via postcards. I recently reconnected with
her and she told me I had been a good baby.

(06:22):
She even kept one of the butterflies from the mobile
above my crib. Years ago, Anne had given me a
gold I D bracelet that had belonged to Papa. On
the front it says Dino read and on the back
my mom had engraved I want to be all your sweetheart, mother,
mistress and wife Patty. The bracelet means a lot to me.

(06:47):
I feel his energy through it. I use it to
help me get through hard days. I'm wearing it right
now as I'm working on this podcast. Anne told me
something else, something surprising. Whenever Papa was home, he would
spend all of his time with me, playing, singing, changing diapers,
taking me out to the parks. It was amazing to

(07:09):
hear about this side of Papa. I don't really remember
any of that, and I don't remember going to any
of Papa's movie premiers are visiting him on set. But
Papa was working hard. He was in three movies in
ninety eight alone, and still giving concerts as well. And
when he wasn't filming, Papa was speaking out politically against

(07:30):
things like the Vietnam War. Here's Cold War historian Justin Jample.
This is a heady time in the Cold War because
America's involved in the Vietnam conflict and U. S g
I s are dying. Anti war protests were erupting in

(07:53):
the US, and political leaders were taking sides. I am
third that at the end of it all, it will
be only more Americans killed, more of our traitorous fan
and because of the bitterness and because of a hatred
on every side of the door, more hundreds of thousands

(08:14):
of Vietnamese water so that they made. They had top
of the that a wrong. They made a together and
they called it peak. The Vietnam War was seen by
many as a proxy for the Cold War. The Americans
supported the capitalists South and the Soviets back the communist North.
Europeans largely stayed out of the war. They focused on

(08:37):
the march of communism within their own borders. But my
father didn't sit on the sidelines. This was a period
of time of international uprising that was often fueled by
Soviet back Socialist Marxist movements. There was the rise of
the rejection against the Vietnam War, which was a global

(08:57):
movement that included revolts in the United States. So for
Dean Reid, he was sort of at the vanguard of
the socialist driven um rebellion before it even became a thing,
and he was always at the place at the exact

(09:19):
right time to be part of a historical moment. At
one protest in front of the American embassy in Rome,
Papa used his US passport to get past a blockaded
policeman and went up the stairs to where the U.
S Ambassador was standing next to the head of Italy's
political police. Papa turned to the crowd, raised his fists

(09:40):
and yelled out God. He was arrested for participating in
quote seditious activity sponsored by the Italian Communist Party. The
charges were eventually dropped, but Mom was always worried who
Papa was going to piss off next. He'd been arrested

(10:04):
three times since they moved to Rome. He'd been beaten up,
in and out of hospitals. Some nights. Mom feared for
her life. She was alone with me most of the time,
and echoes of Argentina worried her. She was lonely and exhausted.
Papa understood this was hard for her, but he felt
a calling. Papa's political ideals had already complicated his relationship

(10:29):
with his dad. They loved each other but could never
see eye to eye. Two months after the arrest, Papa
wrote his dad this letter. Dear father, you say I
was brought up in an honest, moral family, but now
I have changed. You were right that I was brought
up in an honest and moral family, but I have
not changed. I have just carried that morality and honesty

(10:51):
to its ultimate end. Do you realize that for millions
of people in South America who make up the oppressed
majority that I am the most honest and moral American
to come out of America in the last years. You
say that you are proud of me as a singer,
but not as a man. What a shallow definition of proudness.

(11:12):
You helped to create me as an honest and moral
human being. I must live up to that now, love, Dean,
And if we are to have peace in the last
third of the century, a major factor will be the
development of a new relationship between the United States and

(11:35):
the Soviet Union. Papa, of course, was keeping up with
global politics while working on set the Vietnam War, the
Cold War, and what the US was up to in
South America. Right at this pivotal moment, in the election
of nineteen seventy, his friend Salvador Allenda was running for

(11:55):
president of Chile. He had to do whatever he could
to support him. Allen was trying to overcome a longtime
ci A propaganda campaign against socialis um in the country,
and a week before the presidential elections in Chile, Dean
Reid goes back out there in support of his friend
Salvador Allende. Papa felt that he could do something about it,

(12:17):
so he left me and my mom in Roman So
Dean Reid, being the sort of ultimate political spokesperson, gets
the idea that he's going to go to the U. S. Embassy,
alert all of the press, and in front of it,

(12:38):
he washes an American flag, symbolically cleansing his birth country
of what he sees as the sort of corruption of
American foreign policy and CIA backed right as movements. He
also delivers an impassioned speech bunde an ortimericano esta, this

(13:01):
North American flag is dirty with the blood of thousands
of via and these women and children who have been
burned alive by bombs of napalm. Papa's friend Neo Jacobs,
he had what I like to refer to is as
Jane Fonda moment was taken on America on there and
it was very controversial. He's arrested and they take the

(13:24):
flag away from him. Shortly afterwards, Papa met with his friend,
the soon to be Nobel Prize winning poet Pablo Neruda.
According to my father's writings, Naruda sent a cable to
the Chilean press. It read, to the authorities of Chile,
you must return the American flag to Dean Reed. He
watches it of the blood with which his government has

(13:46):
stained it. He is a true representative of his country,
and by his courageous and symbolic act, has shown the
way for all artists. Papa wrote that Pablo's telegram was
published in the newspapers, and remarkably, just before boarding his
flight back to Italy, the Chile government returned his flag.

(14:07):
When the election came about, his friend end one by
a mere thirty nine thousand votes. So it was fairly
obvious that his popularity and his his antics had a
great role in end being elected. The American government took
notice of papast flag washing stunt and the political impact

(14:30):
it had. He was public enemy number one for the
Americans in Chile, and in some ways they blamed him
for Allende's victory. When Papa got back to Italy, my
mom took notice too, well, welcome home, you old fox.
During seven years of marriage, you always told me that

(14:50):
you didn't know how to wash. Now I read in
the newspapers that you're becoming famous as a washer. Well,
from now on you can wash your own socks. It
wasn't long before he left Italy again after Dean read Is,
buoyed by his success in Chile. He turns his attention
to leftist causes in Argentina who are under threat from

(15:14):
the right wing government. He's been banned from Argentina, so
he has to sneak across the border to get in
Bentiuna dimayo Santiago, Chile, Dear Patricia, I shall be leaving
within a week for Uruguay, and then on the seventh
of June, I shall be entering Argentina. The head of

(15:37):
the General Confederation of Labor has offered all his support.
There are many political interests involved, and this time I
think they shall be forced to allow me to enter
or arrest me on false charges. I don't think they
want a political scandal at this time, but one never knows,
and closed is my last farewell in Spanish to the
Chilean people. If something happens, I would like Ramona to

(15:59):
have it okay. Once he's in Argentina, Deanrian makes an
impassioned speech on behalf of the leftist groups that he
came to support, and within hours of making that speech,

(16:23):
he is arrested by the police in the streets of
Argentina and put into Argentinian prison. Sixteen of July carcel
Via Devoto Buenos Aires, Argentina. Dear Patricia, today is Friday.
I'm going into my seventeenth day of prison. It is

(16:45):
worse day by day, and I am now alone in
a cell. Yes, I'm a little depressed and worried. I
want you to be in Rome before now. I have
my doubts when I shall arrive, for the promises of
the dictatorship have not been kept. If I have not
arrived by the time you receive this, get Mina and
Ricci into motion to start a large campaign for my liberty.

(17:07):
And he goes to one of Argentina's the most notorious prisons,
and he starts a hunger strike Monday, the nine of July.
I shall start a hunger strike and shall refuse to
eat anything until I have my freedom or my death.
And he does it at great personal costs, I mean,
he physically becomes emaciated. Um his allies in Chile like

(17:34):
Pabo Naruta are advocating for his release, and he's dwindling
and wasting away. The extent to which the strike has
value depends upon the organization of worldwide opinion and the press.
If the press does not know, a hunger strike fails,
so get all of my friends in Italy off their asses,
for by the time you get this, I shall already

(17:54):
have passed five days of no food. Take care of
yourself and give a large kiss and hug to Ramona.
I would have liked to have seen her before all
this happened, but I knew that if I had not
done it now, I would never have been able to
live with myself by for now and hope to see
you all soon, loved Papa made it out alive, raised

(18:21):
awareness of leftist causes in Argentina, and made it back
to Italy. But the pressure of my mom to be
in charge of all that, plus watching after me, the
fear of attacks, let's just say it was the final straw.
Papa wrote me a letter directly about a month later,
my dearest daughter, Ramona, I am so sorry that I

(18:43):
cannot watch and help you every step of growth to
an adult. But life has separated myself from your mother emotionally,
and my work has separated me from you geographically. Papa
knew Mom would take me back to America. He begged
my mom to stay. He wrote heartbreaking letters, but it
wasn't enough. Off to California I went, and I hope

(19:06):
you are well and happy at this moment. I'm not sure,
but I believe your mother took you with her on vacation.
You're probably swimming very well by now, and also very
tanned from the sun. Next summer we shall find time
to take a vacation together. You and me help your
mother when you can. She is going through a very

(19:26):
difficult period in her life. And bye for now. I
love you very much, your father, Dean Papa. Spaghetti Western's
never quite took off in the US, but recently I
went on a trip to Italy to visit a close friend.
At a restaurant, we were chatting with the chef and

(19:47):
the conversation turned to my papa's movie career. The chef
showed Papa's pictures to his staff. They recognized him immediately.
They were big fans. It felt good to know his
legacy carried on to this day. Still, of all papase movies,
I love to watch his first one, Gualajara and Verano

(20:08):
from It's a breezy melodrama about a group of young
single people spending the summer in Mexico. Papa plays Robert Douglas,
an American college student. In my favorite scene. He starts
singing to a group of friends on the beach. He's handsome,
he's innocent. Don't tell him, no, don't tell him, no,

(20:32):
tell him. But the real reason I love the movie
so much is that my mom was there on the
beach too. She's dancing, he's singing to her. They're so
playful together. What that need you? He need you for life,
My daughen, my da. Don't tell him no, don't tell him.

(20:57):
It was the only time they shared the screen, but
it's also where they fell in love. Tell him no
where deep God? Yeah, what can make it happen? Oh

(21:31):
my God, go go Red Elvis. We'll be back in
two weeks. Volumes. I've learned so much from you, you
the Soviet people. I think Dean enjoyed the benefits of
the Soviets needing a Western rock star, and it was

(21:54):
very advantageous for them to find somebody like Dean who
could be a socialist and a rock star and look
very American. I need police escort to be able to
walk in the streets in Moscow after the concerts. I
need a hundred, please, so I can get to my car.
He would jump off the stage. He would walk along

(22:15):
the aisles. For us, it was not just the breath
of fresh air. For us, it was the biggest revelation
after Bible. Red Elvis is a co production of I
Heard Podcasts and School of Humans, based on the Curiosity
Stream documentary Red Elvis the Cold War Cowboy, directed by

(22:38):
Thomas Ladder and produced by Tallos Films. Check out the
doc at curiosity stream dot com to learn more about
Dean and Ramona and to watch his performances from all
over the world. The show is hosted, co written, and
executive produced by Ramona Reid, Jason English, Virginia Prescott, Brandon
Barr and L. C. Crowley are executive producers. Ryan Murdoch
is the co writer and senior producer. Jessica Metzger is

(23:01):
the senior producer. Jeremy thal That's Me as our editor.
Checking by Savannah Hugely and Adam Bisno. This episode was
mixed and mastered by Zubin Hendler. Thomas Ladder is consulting producer.
Dean Read is voiced by Mark Valley. Patty Read is
voiced by Nicole Britton. Casting support services provided by Breakdown Services,

(23:21):
Music licensing by John Luongo for Tructor entertainment sound designed
by Jeremy Thal and Zuban Hendler. Additional music by Jeremy Thal,
Zuban Handler, and Ross Bell and Watt narration recorded at
JTV Studios, 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

(23:44):
Network for podcast covering history, pop culture, true crime, and more.
I could say, let me give you the hot goss
on your Brenner on. Isn't that what those two girls
say all the time? Hot goss? School of Humans