“The Red Elvis” is the first complete biography of Dean Reed with striking new facts about his mysterious death in the cold war. The book is based on four years of research and interviews with former friends and colleagues of Dean Reed and Ex-officials of the GDR who used Dean Reed for their state-propaganda, including his second wife Wiebke, Peter-Michael Diestel (formerly minister of interior in the GDR in 1990), Isabell Allende, Armin Mueller Stahl, Egon Krenz, last state-leader of the GDR and former head of the youth-organisation FDJ, Eberhard Fensch, formerly in charge of East-German TV-entertainment and also a former friend of Reed...

The author also managed to get hold of large parts of Dean Reeds lost Stasi-files, personal documents and his last letter which was locked in the personal safe of East Germanys former state-leader Erich Honecker until 1989.

The book is accompanied by a documentary, directed by Leopold Grün, distributed by Progress and produced by Totho from Berlin (totho.de) and it will come out in 2007. The German edition of the book came out in 2004 (Publisher: Aufbau Verlag) and will have around 380 pages plus 50 pictures, a filmography and a discography. A paperback version in German comes out in August.

I'm still looking for publishers who want to put the book out the book in foreign countries. The documentary based on the book will come out in 2007

THE RED ELVIS

© Stefan Ernsting (Publisher: Gustav Kiepenheuer Verlag, Germany, 2004)

Introduction: The Unknown Cowboy:

“From the Berlin Wall to Siberia – Dean Reed from Colorado is the biggest star in popmusic. Reed is called the most prominent American after President Ford and Henry Kissinger by Russians and other East-Europeans.” (People’s Magazine, 1976)

East Berlin, 17th of June 1986 Zeuthener lake on a hot summer-day. Hundreds of Eastern cops and agents of the East German secret service Stasi stand around the waterside. Everyone is waiting for a little police-boat crossing the lake and carrying the drowned body of singer, actor and director Dean Reed, the most unknown superstar ever. The man from Colorado, as his TV-show was called behind the wall, had played in countries like Iraq, Nicaragua, Cuba or Bangladesh, burned star-spangled banners in front of American embassies and posed for the media with a machine gun and a palestinian scarf in Lebanon. He was a friend of Yassir Arafat, Dr. Salvador Allende, Victor Jara and Daniel Ortega and he kept protesting against military juntas, atomic power and the war in Vietnam. It had taken the Stasi five days to find the swollen corpse. Two days before the body was found in the lake, Dean Reeds car had been discovered close to the lake and only ten minutes away from his house. Two days later he was supposed to start shooting Bloody Heart on the Krim, a movie about the siege at Wounded Knee and the foundation of the American Indian Movement (AIM) in 1973. The final contracts had been signed three days before. A crew of ninety people was waiting for him. Dean Reed had fought for many years to finance the project. He wrote the script himself and also signed as director and leading actor. The Stasi claimed, Reed accidently drowned in the lake after hitting his head when he was trying to wash his hands after having had a little accident with his car. East Germanys Head of state Erich Honecker personally supervised the investigation and glossed over the real story. The exact details of Dean Reeds death remained unknown. Crime didn’t exist under socialism. Nobody in the east believed the official version. Rumors about a mysterious last letter and a wet job carried out by either CIA, KGb or Stasi started to spread at the same time. Dean Reed became the protagonist in the former eastern blocs favourite conspiracy theory. When the wall came down in 1989, Dean Reed was forgotten already nonetheless. After people were able to buy any record they wanted. Nobody was missing the marxist crooner. Without the state propaganda he was a complete nobody again. Reeds success in the seventies and his downfall during the early days of perestroika, represented the failure of a helpless placebo-culture initiated by state officials. The story of socialism’s favourite popstar is the american dream upside down, the tale of a con man who managed to become famous only because he was american. In 2003, Tom Hanks announced a movie about Dean Reed for Dreamworks: ”Comrade Rockstar”. After Dean Reed has already been made a hero by socialist propaganda, Hollywood can turn his story into a melodramatic conspiracy-thriller. It wasn’t easy to tell propaganda from pop, promotion, make believe and political intrigues to get the big picture. The story of Dean Reed turned from a popmodern research into a spy-thriller. Stasi-files were lost and most witnesses pretended they knew more than they could say. Has the socialist superstar really been killed, die he die in an accident or did he commit suicide? What‘s the real story and what was just a legend? When the facts were clear, the author had to ask himself whether he shouldn’t also print the legend instead of the truth.

Chapter 1:

Wheat Ridge, Colorado, 1948 The ten years old Dean Reed is sent to a military school by his father. He hates the drill right away and drops out a year later to go to his local high school where he becomes a good athlete. Dean Reed learns how to play guitar and starts making a living singing country songs on a tourist ranch and in local bars. His parents can’t afford sending their second son to college too, but Dean Reed manages to finance his studies on his own by playing small gigs around Denver.

Arizona, 1958 Dean Reed drives to California, Rock’n’Roll blasting from the radio. In the middle of the desert he picks up a hitchhiker called Roy Eberhart. Reed talks about his youth and how he desperately wants to make it in Hollywood as a singer. He is a naive boy from Colorado who likes Roy Rogers and has worked as a cowboy on a tourist ranch. Dean Reed sings one of his songs to Roy Eberhart who offers him a deal. If Reed pays his motel-room in Los Angeles, he can get him a date at Capitol Records. A week later Dean Reed signs a contract with Capitol for seven years. Eberhart becomes Reeds first manager. Capitol also signs him up for Warner Brothers “school of stars”, where Dean Reed makes friends with Phil Everly of the Everly Brothers and his new teacher Paton Price. Price is a godfather of the old era and a mayor influence for former students like Kirk Douglas, Don Murray, Roger Smith or Bob Conrad. He is a radical pacifist who had been in jail for refusing to join the army in WW II and becomes Reeds first real friend. Paton Price introduces him to the theatre of truth and realism as defined by Konstantin Sergejewitsch Stanislawski in Moscow. Dean Reed stays with the Price family after having lived with Roy Eberhart in one of Shirley Temples old houses.

Hollywood, 1959 Dean Reed keeps raving about the evil in show business after Eberhart has sold his contract to another company. He calls Hollywood a ”prostitution camp” and refuses to compromise. In 1959, his first single, ”The Search”, enters the billboard-charts on no.96 and stays there for a week. In 1960, “Our Summer Romance”, Reeds fourth single, becomes a surprise-hit in South America. Capitol Records books him a tour through Chile, Argentina, Brazil and Peru. Dean Reed is stunned. He never thought about making it in foreign countries, but it appears to be an interesting opportunity. He leaves his friends behind and doesn’t tell anyone where he is going.

Chile, 1960 In South America, the one-hit-wonder Dean Reed is more popular than Elvis, Paul Anka, Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles or Cliff Richards for a short time. Thousands of fans welcome him at the airport Santiago de Chile and dozens of bodyguards have to protect him whenever he leaves his luxurious hotel-room.

Chapter 2:

Buenos Aires, 1960 After a show in Brazil Dean Reed vanishes for a week. He follows a group of locals deep into the jungle of the Amazons. He hangs out with a tribe of natives and plays music with them. When he continues his tour, the Argentinean press is waiting for him in Buenos Aires. “You ask me whether the Indios have something against the Americans and I have an easy answer for you”, Reed tells them. “They have nothing against Americans. But it was the first time that I didn’t see any signs saying ‚Yankee, go home‘ in all of South America.” Capitol Records considers Reeds statements a lapse, but the singer didn’t feel comfortable in his country anymore anyway. Dean Reed moves to Chile and starts a new life as a singer, actor and agitator. He becomes a political icon singing love-songs and rock’n’roll-classics. People love him in South America while he remains completely unknown in the US. Especially in Chile, Dean Reed makes a lot of new friends within the countrys opposition. They call him “the Red Elvis” or “El Sympatico”.

Chile, 1962 On May 22nd 1962 the “Los Angeles Times” reports that a singer from Hollywood causes a lot of trouble for officials in Washington, Santiago de Chile and Lima in Peru. Dean Reed had written an open letter to a paper in Chile, asking people to write a letter to Kennedy and Chruschtschov to stop nuclear testing. He had just received a warning from the American ambassador in Santiago due to his friendship with Lew Jashin, goalie of the Soviet Union’s national soccer-team. Since he was also starting to take symbolic actions now, the US-government thought it was about time to interfere. The US-ambassador in Lima enforces that Reeds upcoming Peru-tour is cancelled. A member of the US-embassy in Chile threatens him to confiscate his passport if he wouldn’t stop agitating. Dean Reed makes the threats public and the affair becomes a scandal. Paton Price, Marion McKnight, the Miss America 1962 and lots of actors officially protest against the sanctions. Lincoln White, spokesman of the US-ministry of foreign affairs denies everything in an public announcement. But he also states that Reed “should better not do anything against the interests of his country.”

Mexico, 1964 Dean Reed moves to Mexico where he marries his first wife Patricia Hobbs in 1964. He shoots his first movie “Acapulco En Verano” which receives two prizes at the Acapulco-filmfestival. The young couple stays for a few more months in Mexico before they move to Argentina where Reed gets a role in the teen-comedy “Mi Primera Novia” plus his own TV-show.

Argentina, 1965 “The Dean Reed Show” is a huge hit until the entertainer invites Valentina Tereschkowa, the first woman in space. A charming communist showing propaganda for soviet space science is a little bit too much for the young democracy. The argentinian secret service shows up to interrogate Reed for a day. The agents want him to confess to having been paid by the Soviets, but the singer laughs at them. After the official threats didn’t work, somebody hires a few hooligans to try something else. When Dean Reed returns from work to his house in Buenos Aires a few days later, somebody is shooting at him for twenty minutes. Reed runs for cover and calls the police, but nobody is interested. Windows break and neighbors wake up. At some point the invisible gunman gives up and vanishes into the dark. The day after, four armed men are waiting for Reed in front of his house. They are members of the militant left and offer him and his wife protection. For two months they patrol the streets. The killers return a few times and the house becomes a fortress. The radical pacifist Dean Reed has to arm himself for the first time. After the local press starts writing about the late-night shootings they stop.

Chapter 3:

Helsinki, Finland 1965 Dean Reed joins the international peace-movement, which had just started to become a global network. Asked by writer and journalist Alfredo Varela to join the Argentinean delegation of the Peace Council, Dean Reed travels to the World Peace Congress 1965 in Helsinki. At the conference, Chinas Maoists claim that world peace couldn’t be an issue before the world revolution was over. Dean Reed grabs the hands of two other delegates and starts to sing “we shall overcome”, the hymn of the peace movement. After a while everybody except for the Chinese delegation joins the choir and holds hands. The conference is a mayor success and Dean Reed is made a permanent member of the World Peace Council. After the conference he is approached by Nikolai Pastoukhov, head of the soviet youth organisation Komsomol. Pastoukhov asks Reed to do a tour in the Soviet Union. The Beatles had taken the east by storm too and the Soviets desperately needed real popstars to please their youth. The same night, Reed leaves with Pastoukhov to Moscov. They make a stop in Leningrad where Dean Reed performs with the band of a local hotel. Pastoukhov is pleased. He has finally found a Marxist who knew how to sing proper medleys of Elvis and The Beatles.

Moscow, 1966 With his set of Rock’n’Roll-standards, romantic ballads and a Beatles-medley, Reed quickly becomes the most popular foreign star in every socialist country. He keeps touring the USSR and other countries in the eastern bloc for years. Dean Reed performs with big renowned classical orchestras in the background or just on his own with the accoustic guitar he got from his friend Phil Everly. For a lot of people like Michail Gorbashev he is the first rockstar they see in their life. In the meantime Arturo Illfa is replaced by General Ongania in another Putsch in Argentina. In a silent agreement with diplomats in Washington, Dean Reed is exiled to Spain in 1966.

Rome, 1968 Since he couldn‘t get any jobs under Francos fascist regime in Spain, Dean Reed moved to Rome where he signs a three year contract. He does eight Italian movies with stars like Yul Brynner, Anita Ekberg or Nadja Tiller. Most of them are Spaghettiwestern like “Adios Sabata” or cheap genre-flicks like “The cousins of Zorro” and “Karate, Fists and Beans”.

Chile, 1970 After his daughter Ramona is born in 1968, Dean Reed and his wife Patty hobbs divorce. He appears in Chile again to sing in the slums, support the Unidad Popular and shoot a documentary. For a whole year he helps out his friends Salvador Allende and the folksinger Victor Jara supporting the Unidad Popular. In May he gets arrested for washing a bloody Star-Spangled Banner in front of the US-embassy in Santiago.

Chapter 4:

Leipzig, 1971 Dean Reed is invited to the Leipzig film-festival where he shows his movie about the workers and farmers of Chile. He has heard of the wall separating east from west, but he has never been to either side of Germany before. At a welcome-party he falls in love with his second wife Wiebke. Reed moves to the German Democratic Republic and receives an overwhelming welcome by state officials and his fans behind the wall. He becomes a regular guest on East German TV and easily gets a record-contract with the state-owned labels in the east. In 1972, he plays the title-role in the East German film “From the life of a good-for-nothing”. It‘s his first serious movie, which isn’t just another adaptation of an old genre-formula. Dean Reed is made famous because the media claims he had been famous in other countries before. The propaganda in Moscov creates the legend that he used to be a big star in the US who had to escape the country due to his protest against the war in Vietnam. His single “Our Summer Romance” is referred to as a former no.2-hit in the US-billboard-charts which it never was. The myth of the cowboy behind the iron curtain is born.

In 1973, Dean Reed is invited to meet Yasser Arafat who spends a few days in East Berlin and turns out to be a fan of Reeds italian movies. Dean Reed promises to visit Arafat in Lebanon and to support the Palestinians. As a member of the World Peace Council he travels to Bangladesh. He keeps protesting against the war in Vietnam while General Pinochet takes over Chile, Salvador Allende committs suicide and Victor Jara is murdered. A lot of Reeds friends die and depressions start to bug him. He marries Wiebke and in 1976 their daughter Natalie is born. Two years later he insists on another divorce out of nowhere. The same year also sees the siege of Wounded Knee and the foundation of the Oglala Nation. The American Indian Movement (AIM) starts fighting for the rights of the native americans. Dean Reed sympathizes with their struggle and starts thinking about a movie originally called “Wounded Knee”. He changes the title to “Bloody Heart” later and tries to raise money for a film.

East-Berlin, 1974 Dean Reed is approached by the Stasi to infiltrate the US-embassy in East Berlin and report on any suspicious hints connected to western intelligence. Reed agrees and adopts the alias “Victor” for his reports. The Stasi keeps trying to use him for the following two years, but Reed turns out to be a bad spy. He only reports that “unknown US-diplomats had been singing along” after personally inviting the entire embassy-staff to one of his shows.

Chapter 5:

Dean Reed is at the peak of his career. He meets actress Renate Blume on the set of the East German Jack London-adaption “Kit and Co”. Later she becomes the love of his life. When he met Renate Blume, she was still the girlfriend of Gojko Mitic, who was Reeds partner in “Blood Brothers” (1975), a socialist western which became one of the most popular movies behind the wall ever. It was part of a subgenre called “Indianerfilme”, Western from the point of view of the Native Americans. The GDR kept trying to come up with copies of whatever western popculture came up with and in the case of the “Indianerfilme” they were even successful. Like the Spaghettiwestern the subgenre produced it’s own generic conventions and most of the movies were just cheap copies of an original success.

East-Berlin, Cinema International, 1977 Dean Reed uses his popularity in the east to do “El Cantor”, a movie about his dead friend, the folksinger Victor Jara from Chile. For the first time he also signs as writer and director. At the premiere he introduces the audience to a ritual from Chile. “If you don’t jump, you’re a fascist”, he yells while jumping up and down like a pogo-stick. The audience follows the charismatic entertainer and within a few minutes even the old men of the politbureau have to jump up and down until they almost collapse. “El Cantor” is a critically acclaimed success all over the world except for the US where only a handful of Hollywod-insiders get to see the movie.

Chapter 6:

Lebanon, 1977 Dean Reed keeps his promise and visits Arafat who was staying in the South-Lebanon at this time. The Feddajin provide Reed with a machine pistol and a few hand-grenades to defend himself and he stays in the Warzone for a few days until he meets Arafat again. The head of the PLO asks him to do a movie about the situation of the Palestinians. Reed agrees and returns to East Germany to write a script, but the movie never gets finished. Before travelling to Lebanon, Dean Reed is approached by the Stasi again to check his contacts with the PLO. Reed refuses to work against the Palestinians and asks to speak with spymaster Markus Wolf. He starts to ignore the Stasi like he ignores the tickets he gets for speeding on the East German autobahn.

Havanna, Cuba, 1978 Dean Reed manages to use the Stasi for his own course instead. He suggests that he might get arrested in the US and asks for a big solidarity-campaign put up by the East German youth organisation FDJ in that case. Reed travels to Mexico and on October 29th 1978, he appears at one of the rare US-screenings of “El Cantor” in Minneapolis/St.Paul.

Minnesota, 1978 Hundreds of farmers supported by workers and students, marsh through the city to protest against the agrar politics of Minnesota. Dean Reed is right in the middle. Surrounded by 49 police cars he starts singing until he is taken away in handcuffs. 20 people get arrested and put on vans to Wright County Jail in Buffalo. On their way the prisoners manage to cut off the handcuffs. When the guards open the door in the prison-yard, they get out, clapping their hands and singing “We shall not be moved.” For the first time, Dean Reed is in prison in his own country. Instead of paying 1000$ caution he goes on a hungerstrike and some of his fellow prisoners even join him. He demands that all political prisoners in the US should be set free. Reed specifically referrs to the case of AIM-activist Russel Means and the rights of the Oglala Nation. The local officers consider the whole affair a minor incident. To their surprise they are swamped with letters and telegrams from all over the world. The campaign Reed had asked the Stasi for, started right away. Children in eastern schools write collective letters to “save Dean Reed”. Even government-officials from other countries call up the police in Buffalo and the White House to support the singer. International news agencies send people to follow the trial ten days later. VIPs like Pete Seeger and Joan Baez demand Dean Reed to be set free. Egon Krenz, head of the East German Youth Organization FDJ, states in an official telegram: “We‘re at your side any time. Friendship!” President Jimmy Carter wants to avoid a scandal. Nobody has ever heard of Dean Reed, but all the villain-states were going crazy. So, all charges are withdrawn after Carter had a talk with Judge Harold Dahl and all 20 people are released on November the 13th. The case was a precedent. Lawyers of people in prison who were just standing up for civil rights still rely on it. Dean Reed travels back to East Berlin and he is welcomed like a national hero. The cowboy had come home after winning against the United States of America. The propaganda of his heroic victory spreads around the eastern bloc like a disease. He is a good man for public relations and he has the best connections a man could have within the system of the GDR and the Soviet Union. In 1979, Dean Reed receives the Lenin ribbon for arts and literature. No other American had ever received this honour.

East Berlin, 1981 Reed shoots another movie in the GDR: “Sing, Cowboy, Sing”, a mild Western Comedy Musical which is another blockbuster-hit in all socialist countries. Paton Price supervises the project and as a parody of singing cowboys like Roy Rogers and Gene Autry it even works. Reed considers the movie a mistake afterwards. After he had just been accepted as a director with “El Cantor”, he was back to being the grinning cowboy again. Reed keeps trying to get an international hit like a manicac, but he never comes up with anything original. He has a talent for integrating elements of folkmusic from other cultures, but his material is just plain terrible. John Denver sounds like a dirty punk compared to Reed who likes Neil Diamond and Kenny Rogers. His records consist of cover-versions most of the time and his country-songs are too old-fashioned to find any western buyers. He keeps pretending that he used to be a big star in the US and lives a lie he can’t escape from. Various times he tries to commit suicide. His proud father had committed suicide after he couldn’t afford a wooden leg and Dean Reed is convinced this was the right thing to do if you were stuck with your life. After Paton Price dies, he tries to commit suicide again.

Chapter 7:

Nobody really likes the cowboy anymore. Dean Reed is one of the privileged few who support the socialist wall as an American citizen who is free to go somewhere else at any time. Every single one of his symbolic protests would end with years in prison for a citizen of the GDR. People are fed up with hearing about his heroic deeds and meanwhile they consider him a salon-Bolshevik. His shows are far away from being sold out and his audience has gotten older with him. In the end he only plays to women in their fourties who never heard of the Rolling Stones. During his last years Dean Reed can‘t find work as an actor anymore. He is considered a joke inside the movie-industry and even in the eastern bloc his songs are out of time.

West Berlin, 1983 Dean Reed gets a job in another odd movie produced in Japan and West-Berlin called “Races” in 1983. ”Races” also features a young Patrick Steward (StarTrek) who looks like he needs the money as badly as Dean Reed who had to make some real dollars to pay for his first daughter in the US.

Chile, 1983 On August 15th, Dean Reed returns to Chile. When he leaves Moscow to South America, he knows that 17 people had already been shot during three days of riots following a demonstration against the regime of Augusto Pinochet. After changing planes in Buenos Aires the body count is 27. Hundreds were injured, thousands had gotten arrested. Reed is accompanied by American filmmaker Will Roberts who does a documentary about him: "American Rebel: The Dean Reed Story". The chilean press at the airport welcomes him and helps him get into the country again. The trade unions of Santiago de Chile booked a show at their headquarters and Dean Reed sings “Venceremos”, the banned hymn of the Unidad Popular. The day after he plays the song again at the university. The cops attack people leaving the show and Dean Reed runs for his life. A few days later, 60 cops arrest him and kick him out of the country again.

Nicaragua, 1984 Reed appears again in Nicaragua where he plays a show in Jalapa in April. He has a long talk with Daniel Ortega who becomes president half a year later. Reed plays a song about the struggle in Nicaragua in front of the US-embassy. He addresses it to Ronald Reagan and holds a speech against the USA supporting the Contras. In autumn he gets arrested in Montevideo, Uruguay for supporting the Frente Amplio and its leader Liber Seregni who had just been released from nine years of prison. Reed is caught singing his song "No nos moveran" with about 100 people in front of the US-embassy a little later.

Denver, Colorado, 1986 Dean Reed speaks a lot about moving back to the US and visits old friends in Colorado. His buddy Johnny Rosenburg writes a song called “Nobody knows you back in your hometown” for him after Reed is surprised that nobody in the US has ever heard of him. He rarely speaks English anymore. Over the years he has also lost touch with the trends of the western popworld and under Gorbachev he appears like a relict from old times. His childhood-friend Dixie Schnebly does some promotion for him in America and he wants to do his first US-tour in 1987 after having toured through 32 other countries. When “60 Minutes” airs a special about him, the american dream is over. In an interview with Mike Wallace, Reed compares Reagan to Stalin and claims the wall was still necessary. The program also shows a scene from “Blood Brothers”, where Reed breaks an american flag while standing in the middle of burned down tippis. Reed receives lots of death threats from the US. Baskets full of letters arrive at his house around the Zeuthener lake. He is commercially dead and any sort of homecoming seems to be impossible. He locks himself in his bedroom In East Berlin and reads the letters full of hate over and over. He tries to commit suicide again by cutting himself with a machete and gets more and more depressive every day. Dean Reed is still working on “Bloody Heart” with director Günter Reisch and manages to raise the money for an East German-Soviet co-production. AIM-activists Russell Means and Clyde Delacourte agree to play themselves. The movie about the siege at Wounded Knee in 1973 and the roots of the American Indian Movement is finally green-lighted. One week before the filming of “Bloody Heart” is supposed to start, the final contracts are signed in Moscow on the 10th. Dean Reed is excited and sends his crew to the Krim, but the production is still very shakey. Some american actors cancelled due to chernobyl and a lot of props were still missing. But Dean Reed even managed to get a real tank from Vietnam and he was committed to do the film. On the night of the 12th he leaves his house around 8.30 p.m. to see his producer Gerrit List and talk about the final details of the production. List had just returned from Moscow with the contracts and waits for Dean Reed who never shows up.

Chapter 8:

London, June 15th 1986 The contracts for the film “Bloody Heart” were cancelled on the 15th already, two days before the body was found. On the 19th, Reed was supposed to be interviewed by Russel Miller of the “Sunday Times” who had just finished his controversial biography of L. Ron Hubbard: “Bare-faced messiah”. Miller never met Reed who promised the journalist to tell him some secrets the public wasn’t supposed to know without being specific. After having arrived in East Berlin, Miller was told that Reed was in a hospital. After coming back to London he was approached by a detective called Peter Comras who claimed Miller was responsible for Reeds death. Comras also claimed to work for Reeds family who denied to have ever heard of him.

East Berlin, Crematorium Berlin-Baumschulenweg, June 24h 1986 The memorial service reminds Dean Reeds friends and family-members from the US of a state funeral with dozens of eastern VIPs and representatives of the state attending. Some people wonder why it took the Stasi so long to find the car which was parked ten minutes away from Reeds house. Some had heard about a last letter, written on the back of the script for “Bloody Heart”. The US never showed any interest to look into the case of one of the most famous Americans ever. When the wall came down in 1989, Dean Reed was forgotten already, but the mayor part of his Stasi-files was gone nonetheless. In the wild days of anarchy in 1990, the last government of the sinking ship which used to be called GDR started another official investigation. The officials came to the conclusion that Dean Reed had committed suicide. It was written by former members of the Stasi who had just switched sides in the middle of Germanys reunification-process. They mentioned the letter, but the the original copy disappeared from the ministry of interior which had taken over Honeckers personal safe. A little later that year, somebody sold a copy of the letter with Dean Reeds suicidal notes to the press. But some people kept the conspiracy theories going. Like Elvis Presley, Reed appeared to be larger than life and his petty death didn’t seem to fit the legend. The story of his life was too good to be true and the mysterious ending was an important element.

Tags: Dean Reed, Red Elvis, Tom Hanks