1938: Dean Reed was born to a high school teacher and a stay-at-home mom. He was the youngest of their three boys.
The Reeds were an all-American family, and Dean’s father was staunchly anti-Communist.
Dean graduated from a Colorado high school in 1956 at age 18, the same year Elvis Presley first appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show at age 21.
The next year, Dean went to Los Angeles to get into showbiz. His natural good looks helped him land small television roles.
Dean was also musically gifted as a singer and guitarist. He recorded a demo of a pop song.
Columbia Records signed him to a contract with the notion of turning him into a teeny-bopper idol.
Throughout the late 50s and early 60s, Dean Reed released several pop singles.
Only one tune, The Search, made it onto the US music sales charts.
However, by 1962, Reed’s song Our Summer Romance became a modest hit in South America. The record company sent him on tour there.
Reed learned Spanish, adopted leftist politics, and relocated to Argentina.
He formed a band and performed throughout South America. He also publicly espoused anti-American sentiments and participated in protests.
Dean Reed’s celebrity flourished south of the border and then in Europe. In the US, however, he remained unknown.
1964: He married his first wife, a fellow American named Patricia. They started a family and remained in South America.
After a military coup, Reed was forced to leave Argentina. He then moved to Italy.
In 1970, he appeared in an Italian spaghetti Western film called Adios, Sabata, which starred Yul Brynner.
Reed’s fame grew everywhere - except in his native United States.
His stardom was especially bright in the Soviet Union.
His pop/rock music and blue jeans style led Eastern Europeans to compare him to Elvis Presley.
Except Dean Reed was a Marxist.
His first marriage ended in divorce with his American ex-wife and daughter returning to the US.
Reed married again, this time to an East German woman. Their marriage lasted just 5 years.
He performed on his own TV specials that were broadcast throughout the Soviet Bloc.
During the 70s, his setlist consisted of cover songs from the 50s and 60s. Although they were already out of style in America, they were new to the Russians who loved him.
1973: Reed made East Germany his new home. During the period of the Cold War, East Germany was behind the Iron Curtain.
He never joined to local Communist Party, however, saying that he still had citizenship in the US.
In secret, he wanted to be as successful in his native country as he was in Europe.
In 1981, Reed married for a third time to another East Berliner. It was rumored that his wife spied on him to the secret police.
1986: The TV news show 60 Minutes interviewed Dean Reed. That was the first exposure most Americans had to the pop star.
During the program, Reed was critical of Ronald Reagan, approved of the Berlin Wall, and was in favor of the Russian invasion of Afghanistan.
Americans hated him for it. So did members of his own family in the US.
A month and a half after the news show aired in the states, Reed was found dead in a lake near his home. The coroner ruled it a “tragic accident.”
That made no sense to people close to him, though, because Reed was an athletic swimmer.
In a suicide note revealed later, Reed supposedly apologized to then-General Secretary of East Germany Erich Honecker for any bad publicity he might have created for the country and ruling party.
But there was also speculation that his third marriage was a disaster, especially given his years-long affair with an Estonian actress, and Reed was severely depressed over it.
The 60 Minutes episode might have pushed him over the edge.
Some fans speculated that either the KGB or the CIA had him killed. None of those claims were supported with any facts.
Dean Reed didn’t live long enough to see the destruction of the Berlin Wall, the breakup of the Soviet Union, or the reunification of Germany.
Though a star behind the Iron Curtain, he never achieved the fame he hoped to find in the land of his birth.
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