Singer and actor Dean. DEAN - Asiasearch - Dramas, films and music of Asia

September 22 to the famous American actor, singer and public figure Dean Reed would have turned 79 years old, but in 1986 he passed away under mysterious circumstances. He was found dead in a lake near his home in Berlin, and his body was hastily cremated. The artist was originally from Denver (USA), but because of his political views he was forced to leave there, and therefore was a welcome guest in all socialist countries. In the USSR, Dean Reed enjoyed incredible popularity.

American singer and film actor Dean Reed was a favorite of Soviet audiences. Always cheerful, open to communication, the American artist was a welcome guest in all socialist countries. Therefore, when a message appeared about the unexpected and equally mysterious death of the artist, many versions of the cause of his death appeared.

When Reed's body was found in Lake Zeutener See on June 17, 1986, it was underwater, covered with rocks. Forensic experts concluded that the singer died almost four days ago. Further data on the causes of death are surrounded by various contradictory details. According to the official police version, the singer's death was an accident. However, his mother and first wife Patricia are sure that Dean was killed for his decision to return to America. His last wife Renata Blume does not give interviews. But one day she let it slip that her husband was killed with five stabs. And yet, most of his acquaintances are sure that after a quarrel with his wife, the singer decided to take his own life.

His neighbor, General Eberhard Fansch, talks about this in the film - he and his wife heard Dean and Renata arguing loudly shortly before the tragedy. After some time, it became known that a suicide note addressed to the general was left on the seat of the deceased singer’s car. Fansch himself recalls that Dean often had thoughts of suicide, but his neighbor managed to talk him out of the terrible act. In the film, Fansch bitterly admits: “He promised that he wouldn’t do anything to himself. He swore that he wouldn’t do it, but he did...”

Doubts that Dean Reed's death is suicide are expressed by the singer's friend, translator Oleg Smirnov. He is sure that there are a lot of blank spots in this case, and the fact that the body was hastily cremated proves that the GDR authorities wanted to hide something. Random witnesses also disappeared in unknown ways. When Patricia, who arrived at the scene of the death, asked one of the police officers why Reed’s wallet was dry if it was found in the lake, she heard an unexpected answer: who said that the body was found in the lake? When the woman later tried to find this policeman, he disappeared without a trace. Many people are puzzled by another detail. If it was suicide, then why was the body pressed to the bottom by stones? The filmmakers are trying to understand all versions of this case.

After the liquidation of the Stasi (GDR Ministry of State Security), residents of East Germany learned that there was a detailed dossier on each of them. A person like Dean Reed, especially, could not help but be under the close supervision of this service. However, according to Stasi Museum expert Felix Müller, there is not a single dossier on Reed in the Stasi archives. And there is no true information about how the artist died.

One of the great successes of the film's authors is a large exclusive interview with the Estonian actress Eve Kivi, with whom Dean Reed had a long-term affair. Despite the fact that the singer was very much loved in the USSR, he was not allowed to buy an apartment in Moscow and was forbidden to officially register his marriage with the woman he loved. And for many years Eva and Dean had to meet in hotels...

Not only is the interview with Kiwi unique - the documentary is entirely built on exclusive materials. For example, it shows documents that none of the TV viewers could see before - the results of the autopsy of the body, refuting some versions of the death, the text of Dean Reed's suicide letter.

The authors of the film trace the entire creative and life path Reed, starting when he was 12 years old, without knowing musical literacy, having learned six chords on the guitar, he began writing songs. He sang them to anyone who would listen. One day, such a random listener turned out to be a Columbia Records producer... Already in 1961, the 23-year-old singer, having albums of recorded songs, went on tour to Latin America. He meets Salvador Allende, Che Guevara, Victor Jara. The political views of the cheerful American are rapidly changing. The whole world was discussing the singer’s act when Reed demonstratively washed the American flag “from the blood of Vietnamese children.”

Due to conflicts with the American government, the singer leaves the country and, without receiving permission to stay in the USSR, new house found in the GDR. Why did Dean Reed once say during a meeting with Ewe Kiwi: “How I hate this country and the people from the GDR”? Why did the singer receive death threats in Germany? According to the film participants, Dean Reed played his role in the political arena. And at the turn of the era, there is no need for witnesses to either ups or downs. Those who had been his puppeteers all his life, who had manipulated him, knew this. But will we know their names?

Bernard Battalova

In the years Cold War"typical American guy" Dean Reed was the most popular rock star - behind the Iron Curtain. In Moscow, crowds of fans flocked to his concerts; among his admirers was Yasser Arafat himself. But in 1986, his body was fished out of the lake. Who did it - the KGB? CIA? Or did Reed simply realize that he had become a stranger in the world of perestroika and glasnost?

In April 1986, in my New York apartment, I watched 60 Minutes with half an eye. information program CBS. Suddenly there was a story called “Defector”. It was about a pop star named Dean Reed. He sang “Heartbreak Hotel” and “Tutti-frutti”, and where - in the USSR! But this was only the very beginning of glasnost, when the rock singer could rarely be seen on Red Square. His name meant nothing to me: I shook myself and listened.

As it turned out, Reed - absolutely unknown to anyone in the West - had been in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe for twenty years a real star: He was called “red Elvis”, “communist Johnny Cash”, the man who brought rock and roll to Russia. He made films - the Eastern European version of Westerns - performing in the genre of the "singing cowboy". This typical American - which no one would doubt if you just saw him blonde hair, excellent white teeth, flexible toned body, a charming smile - he zealously promoted the “line of the CPSU”, and did it amazingly. Six weeks later he was no longer alive.

Reed's body was found in a lake near his home in the East Berlin suburb of Schmeckwitz. According to Russell Miller, who published an article about this in the Sunday Times, the circumstances of Reed's death were shrouded in a dense veil of secrecy. The Berlin Wall still stood unshakable, the Stasi still ruled in the GDR, information was hidden, and a thin stream of facts turned into a stream of speculation. Who killed Reed - the Stasi? KGB? CIA? Neo-Nazis? Officially, the cause of death was an accident, but no one believed it. I was determined to find out who killed Reed and what kind of man he was, and today I can say that I have spent half my life tracing the incredible fate of the singer and working on a book about him. The rights to its film adaptation were bought by Tom Hanks - he is going to play in the film main role. When I met him in Los Angeles (trying my best to pretend that drinking Coca-Cola and talking about the Cold War with Tom Hanks was a normal thing for me), what struck me most was that he, too, was so excited. Of course - after all, in it, as in a drop of water, it was reflected an entire era! Comical, monumental, tragic, heroic, the incredible figure of Dean Reed is somewhat reminiscent of Forrest Gump [hero famous film R. Zemeckis, played by Tom Hanks - approx. transl.], partly a slick politician, partly a rock star. Today I simply can’t believe that in November it will be 15 years since the fall Berlin Wall. When Reed left the United States, it was just being built, and soon after his death it collapsed. He was a legend of the Cold War, and the Wall was his uncharted "wild west." Once on the other side of the Wall, he gained fame. He became a "fellow rock star."

Reed was born in 1938 in Wheat Ridge, a suburb of Denver (Colorado); a place so provincial that you couldn’t even find a traffic light there during the day, and almost all the residents traveled on horseback. His mother, Ruth Anna, a former teacher, was a housewife, keeping chickens and a pig. Father Cyril, also a teacher, was a strict disciplinarian; he was proud of Dean, although he often took the belt for educational purposes. Dean has two brothers - Vern and Dale; he missed his father's attention. Cyril was one of the first to join the far-right organization the John Birch Society. (Perhaps, having become a communist, Dean experienced a sweet feeling of revenge. But that is yet to come.)

Dean grew up like most American children: he studied at a military academy [in the USA - boarding schools for paramilitary-type boys - approx. transl.], rode horseback, swam, joined the Future Farmers of America organization; at the age of seventeen he took part in an “endurance race” on mules along a route of 110 miles; however, his mule lost. “Some people thought it showed his tenacity and resilience,” his mother told me. “I always thought Dean was born under lucky star"However, his large, protruding ears caused Dean a lot of trouble. He was a thin and shy guy. Dean began playing the guitar, hoping to gain the attention of girls in this way. In those years, he was nicknamed “Skinny Reed.” Post-war America was a recklessly cheerful country - winner: at that time it seemed that any boy, if he really wanted to, could become president, the main thing was that he was white and followed the “rules of the game.” Conformism and fear were mixed with optimism: the Cold War was going on, the country was shaken by anti-communist hysteria, at school lessons civil defense children were taught to hide under their desks in case of nuclear explosion(this was called "duck and cover"). The new-fangled “subversive” movement called “rock and roll” was taking its first steps - the song “Rock” by Bill Haley and his band “Comets” Around the Clock" has already broken popularity records.

Reid finished high school in Wheat Ridge and went to college with his sights set on a career as a television weather anchor. In 1958, he dropped out of school and went to Hollywood. His father was not enthusiastic about “all these songs,” to put it mildly, but Reed considered himself an excellent singer and craved fame. This trip has become a family legend: in a blurry black-and-white photo, Reed looks extremely impressive behind the wheel of a white Chevrolet Impala convertible, as large as an airliner. On the way, he gave a lift to one person, and as a sign of gratitude, he suggested who to contact at Capitol Records, and Reed signed a contract to record a record. It was all like something out of a movie, his mother recalls.

He attended the Warner Brothers School of Dramatic Arts, where acting was taught by Paton Price and Reed's classmates were Don and Phil Everly. The Everly Brothers duo had already achieved fame by releasing the album "Wake Up, Little Susie" in 1957; Record studios, frantically searching for the “new Elvis,” were snapping up any rock musician they could find. Reed was friends with Phil Everly until the end of his days.

I spoke with Phil in Burbank. This handsome man, with true southern charm, recalled the role Price played in their lives. “He was one of those who could be called a ‘teacher of life,’” Everly said. “And for Dean, he also became a second father.”

Price had a huge influence on Reed. He was a liberal in the classical sense of the word, and in Hollywood at that time the memories of the nightmare of McCarthyism were still alive, so Price instilled in his students: only good man. Reed had learned his lesson firmly. For many years, Price encouraged Reed's interest in politics: some believed that he later became a kind of "godfather" for him. True, Reed's mother remarked: "In my opinion, everything Payton taught Dean was related to sex." By the early 1960s, handsome Reed was recording discs, starring in bad films, and occasionally appearing on television. He met Patty, the girl who became his first wife. But Dean couldn’t calm down, he always wanted more. Hearing that one of his songs, "Our Summer Romance," was a hit in Chile, he went there without telling literally anyone. In Santiago he was greeted by thousands of fans shouting: "Viva Dean! Viva Dean!"

“He was just a naive gringo who decided to ‘conquer’ Latin America,” says a DJ at one of Santiago’s radio stations. By analogy with the hero of the popular musical film, Dean received the nickname “The Magnificent Gringo.”

He was handsome, he had blue eyes and an amazing smile. He sported a blue gabardine jacket and tight trousers. But in South America, Reed became addicted to politics. One day he saw a sign on the wall: “Yankees, go home.” Like most Americans, he was stung by the sudden realization that someone might not like them. But Reed did not become despondent: he decided to save the whole world.

“South America changed my life because there justice and injustice, wealth and poverty are visible to the naked eye,” he said in an interview with the authors of the biographical documentary American Rebel. “They are so obvious that you can’t help but take a clear position. I "I was neither a capitalist nor blind. It was there that I became a revolutionary."

Literally nothing could stop him. He sang for the poor and the rich, protested against the Vietnam War and nuclear weapons, went to prison, became friends with the poet Pablo Neruda and the performer folk songs Victor Jara, together with his Indian friends, traveled through the Amazon.

Active participation in politics affected him the way fame affects other stars - it spurred Reed on. But his career as a “fellow rock star” really began in Helsinki in 1965.

In the mid-1960s, Soviet official ideologists were just looking for some showman with acceptable views who would prevent young people from getting away with it. True, at the World Peace Congress in Helsinki in 1965, Moscow journalist Nikolai Pastukhov did not at all expect to find a suitable candidate. There was complete confusion at the congress: the Russians and the Chinese did not speak to each other, the delegates were yelling at each other, and things were about to break out into a brawl.

And suddenly a young man jumped onto the stage and began to sing, accompanying himself on the guitar. He made everyone in the audience join hands and sing "We Shall Overcome" with him. It was Dean Reed. Pastukhov immediately assessed the situation: a handsome American, a supporter of socialism, singing songs in defense of peace. He said to himself: “Bullseye!” It was he who helped organize Reed's first tour to the USSR.

In 1966, when he performed at the Moscow Variety Theater, Reed turned 28 years old. He sang folk ballads and popular songs like "Maria" - Soviet listeners especially liked it. He knew how to dance the twist, he behaved on stage like a real rock musician.

It was an exciting sight. He usually started with “Ghost Riders in the Sky” - this melody became his “calling card”. While giving concerts in the countries of the so-called “socialist camp,” he once performed it for Yasser Arafat - newsreel footage shows him tapping the melody with his fingers.

Talking about Reed's concerts, Pravda noted that "Dean left his country in protest against the unjust US war in Vietnam." Soon he signed a contract with Melodiya, a state-owned recording company that had not previously released a single record in the rock genre.

During his first tour of the Soviet Union, Reed gave concerts in 28 cities. Crowds of people greeted him. He still lived in Latin America, but often came to the USSR - either with concerts or at conferences in defense of peace. Everyone I met in the Soviet Union remembered Reed; even today, if you ask any Russian over forty, he will answer: “Oh yes, Dean Reed. I remember!”

“Every time Dean left the house, he was surrounded by a crowd of fans,” says Everly, who once visited Reed in East Berlin, where they gave a joint concert. “Boy, he was more popular than Elvis!”

Was he talented? Reed had a pleasant voice, played the guitar well, and had some acting skills. But that was not the point. No one understood the significance of Dean Reed, his rise and fall, better than Artemy Troitsky, the first and best music critic in rock and roll in the USSR, author of the book “Back in the USSR.” “No Western rock musician ever came to the USSR,” says Troitsky. “Dean Reed was young. He played the guitar. He was an American. For literally every Soviet teenager, rock and roll meant a lot. It gave them a feeling freedom, the opportunity to be different from our parents in some way. In addition, it was a kind of window to another world, a window to the West. Politics did not bother us, but the terrifying quality of the “official” Soviet pop music worried us very much. The word “West” was synonymous the words “good.” And Dean Reed wore cowboy boots, came from “the free land, the homeland of heroes” and Chuck Berry.” For the next six years, Reed shuttled between South America, Europe and the Soviet Union. He made "spaghetti westerns", including one with Yul Brynner, briefly became interested in Maoism in Rome, recorded discs in Prague, where they created the best rock musicians throughout the Eastern Bloc. However, he was still little known in the West: Reed’s popularity was limited to the border of the Berlin Wall. (By the way, he was not, in fact, a defector: he retained American citizenship and annually sent income declarations to the US Tax Service). Perhaps if he had been a truly outstanding singer and actor, everything would have turned out differently; perhaps he would have gained greater fame. But his talent lay in his unique status as an American on the other side, his talent lay in the bizarre combination of music, politics, sex, energy, even just being "in the right place in the world." right time"Perhaps he understood this. For all his political naivety, for all his conceit, he had the ability to look at himself soberly. Reed was a man of mood: he could light up like a light bulb and quickly dim if things went badly. However, most often the main thing for him was movement as such: it allowed him not to think about reality.

In 1971, when Reed arrived in East Germany, he was already a real star. There he began making films and met Renate Blume, a GDR film star who became his third wife (after his divorce from Patty, he was briefly married to another East German).

They married in 1983 and settled into a nice house in Schmeckwitz, on the outskirts of Berlin; when I visited Blume, she remarked with captivating sincerity: “The interior is in a cowboy-Biedermeier style.” On one of the walls hung an American flag, which Reed had once publicly washed in Chile as a sign of protest against the Vietnam War: as he himself explained, in this way he symbolically washed away the blood of the Vietnamese. Blume - a real beauty with a straightforward look of black eyes. “He was my friend, my husband, my compañero,” she says. In general, he and Reed lived on friendly terms, and in 1985 they even got together to film a film called “Bleeding Heart.” Reed was to write, direct, and play the main character; The main female role was given to Blume. The plot was a love story, developing against the backdrop of the Indian uprising at Wounded Knee in 1973 - one of the favorite themes of socialist propaganda. However, in the fall of 1985, Reed went to America. Bleeding Heart was never made.

"Welcome, welcome home. My God, guy, you're not even bald," he greeted old friend Johnny Rosenberg as Reed stepped off the plane in Denver. “He literally jumped out of that plane,” says Rosenberg, “looking like he was the greatest star of all time.”

It was Reed's longest trip to the United States in a quarter century. He took part in the Denver Film Festival, where a documentary about his life was shown. He met with his school friend Dixie Schnelby, and she promised that she would prepare for his return to the States as a star musician. And he suddenly fell in love with America. He was delighted with blue sky over the Colorado mountains, from bright sun, from the relaxed behavior of his friends and their sincere joy when meeting him. They encouraged him to think that he could return home as a star; when the time came to leave, Reed's heart was breaking with grief. Before leaving, he gave a small concert at Rosenberg's home in Loveland, Colorado. It marked Reed's only performance on American soil.

“After the trip to Colorado, he really missed his homeland,” says Blume. “He was terribly homesick. That’s all he talked about.”

Meanwhile, in the USSR everything began to change quickly. “With the advent of glasnost, in 1985-86, the public was finally able to see the heroes of Russian rock,” explains Toritsky. American rock and roll, even if we were talking about Prince and not Dean Reed, began to lose popularity. A man like Dean Reed could only become a star in a very provincial country, isolated from the world. Soviet Union and Eastern Europe began to gradually move closer to the world community culturally. . . In the light new information, the image of Dean Reed became increasingly dim." As the truth about the Soviet system came to light, people began to treat Reed with contempt for the fact that he unconditionally supported the system: they realized that Reed was simply a puppet of the official authorities. In the spring of 1986 A rock concert was held in Moscow to help the victims of Chernobyl: Reed was present at it, but no one asked him to perform.

Even in the GDR, the ranks of Reed's fans were thinning. Victor Grossman - American writer, who lived in the GDR and was friends with Reed, says: “People who began to become disillusioned with the system did not like those who supported it. Fewer and fewer spectators came to his concerts, and for a star it was not very pleasant to perform in an empty hall. "In the mid-eighties, Reed felt that doors were slamming in front of him one after another."

His main hope was the program "60 Minutes". He was sure that big plot on CBS will be his “entrance ticket” to restart his career in the United States. And indeed, in the winter of 1986, Mike Wallace, America's most famous reporter, flew to see him in Berlin. The interview turned out to be successful. The program was supposed to air in the fall, but instead it was broadcast on April 20, 1986 - that's when I saw the interview in my New York apartment, and 60 million Americans first learned who Dean Reed was.

It cannot be said that in the program the image of Reed was presented in a negative way. However, answering the interviewer’s questions, he said that he considered Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev to be a more moral and peace-loving person than US President Ronald Reagan, and even defended the need for the existence of the Berlin Wall. His American friends were horrified - after all, the Cold War was still ongoing. They understood: Reed had nothing to hope for in America. As Rosenberg put it, “The one thing that should never be done in our country is to defend the Wall.” 60 Minutes later forwarded viewer letters to Reed; in some of them he was called a traitor, or, even worse, an opportunist, capable of succeeding only east of the Berlin Wall.

Reed was desperate. But he still had the Bleeding Heart project. Filming was scheduled to begin in June, despite money problems. On June 12, 1986, Reed received a call from his German producer Gerrit List, who had just returned from Moscow, where he discussed financing the film. Reed, worried, said that he would come to his house that evening. But Liszt never waited for him. The search for Dean continued for several days. At 8:20 a.m. on June 17, his body was discovered in a lake near his home.

For a long time I was sure that Reed was the victim of a crime, that through his ambition, subversive actions, or longing for America he had attracted someone's malevolent attention. Then, during the Cold War, hypotheses related to the intelligence services - the Stasi, the KGB, the CIA - invariably looked tempting. In fact, he most likely committed suicide. When all the doors were closed in front of him, Reed could not help but feel like “a man from the past” - although some, especially his friends, always held, and still hold, a different opinion. “Dean laughed a lot,” says Phil Everly. “A man who can still laugh will not commit suicide.”

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, information about his death was declassified, and I spoke with the former head of the criminal police of the GDR, Thomas Sindermann. “I was convinced that this was suicide,” he recalls. “They made an idol out of Reed, a kind of American fighter for communism. The authorities did not want young people to know that he had problems and committed suicide.”

But what convinced me that Reed’s death was a suicide, or at least a self-staged accident, was not the dry facts cited by Zinderman or the autopsy report, or even the seemingly genuine suicide note, but the words of a young Russian writer.

“Dean’s death did not come as a surprise to me,” says Ksenia Golubovich. “I think he committed suicide because this is what a hero should have done. If a person really wants to become someone, he becomes one. This requires enormous strength. "He died when he completely destroyed himself. In his own way, Dean still became what he wanted."

After all these years, Dean Reed's story still haunts me, partly because of its sheer scale - his biography, tragic and comic at the same time, is huge, bloated and over-detailed, like a birthday fruit cake. After all, for better or for worse, he was not an outside observer in this world. He truly was a Cold War legend.

Dean Reed - American singer and a rock and roll and country musician, actor, musician, director and composer from the United States, beloved by audiences in the Soviet Union. He was an amazingly handsome, stately man, photo- and telegenic, artistic, and also played the guitar beautifully.

The artist’s work became known all over the world, and women in different countries went crazy from the smile, athletic figure and incredible timbre of the voice of this talented and charismatic singer. He became a legend during his lifetime.

Childhood and youth

Dean Reed was born on September 22, 1938 under the zodiac sign of Virgo. Father future star Cyril Reed worked as a teacher, Ruth's mother Anna did housework. In addition to Dean, the family had two more sons - Vern and Dale.

First musical instrument– a guitar – young Dean received as a birthday present; he wrote his first song about passionate love at the age of 16.

Having entered the University of Colorado at the age of 18 to study meteorology, the young man simultaneously performs in clubs and bars. But then the young man drops out of school and decides to see if his talent is enough for a full-time career as a musician.

Music

This action led to Reed signing his first contact with a major music label at the age of 20. The guy’s tracks were not immediately noticed by the audience, but the songs from the second and especially the third album received numerous rotations on the radio, were loved by the people and even entered the charts of the “hottest hits” of those years.

He goes on tour first in the USA, and then comes to Latin America, where Dean will experience dizzying success. Here he stays to live for several years to create, perform in concerts, act in TV shows, videos, and even host his own TV show.

In Latin America, he becomes interested in “leftist” political views and becomes a social activist who advocates the fight against poverty and world peace. This makes the singer’s managers and tour director very nervous, but the artist is adamant. He takes an interest in local politics and participates in public dialogue, but this does not end well - during the national revolution, Dean is first imprisoned and then deported from Argentina.

The artist moves to Europe and begins to tour actively again. Performances in the Soviet Union are a huge success, he instantly becomes a people's favorite and travels around with concerts. major cities countries. In 1973, Dean decided to stay in the GDR: he recorded 13 albums, directed a film about his friend, and acted in dozens of films as an actor. In Russia, the film about the struggle between Americans and Indians, which starred Dean Reed and.

The singer turned out to be an extremely controversial person - he remained a patriot of his homeland, but adhered to Marxist views. He sincerely missed the USA, but criticized the actions of the American authorities and justified the decisions made in the USSR. Many considered Dean a traitor, but he was only separating his love of home from politics.

According to the musician himself, all the artist’s songs were always about one thing - about passionate, deep love, to which the singer was inspired by his homeland and women. During his short but bright career, Dean Reed recorded more than three dozen albums, and this is not counting the numerous collections released and re-released in individual countries. In recent years, he has recorded mostly unofficial cover versions of famous American and Italian songs.

Residents of the USSR will forever remember him for his performance of the songs “Bella, Ciao”, “Hava Nagila” and others. The main legendary moment in his career on Soviet soil was the performance of the song “Elizabeth” on New Year’s Eve on the country’s main television channel. After this, records with Reed's recordings were sold out in the Union in millions of copies.

Dean loved the people of the USSR, and the domestic public responded in kind. The singer even thought about moving to the Union for permanent place residence and planned to buy an apartment in Moscow.

Personal life

Dean Reed lived a life full of love affairs. The first time he married Hollywood actress Patricia Hobs, with whom he traveled halfway around the world and eventually divorced in Italy.

Dean's second wife was Wiebke Ried (Dorndek), who worked as a teacher and model. This union also ended in divorce in November 1977.

From his first and second marriages, Reed had two children - daughters Ramona (born in 1968) and Natasha (1976).

Later, Dean’s translator during a tour in the USSR, Oleg Smirnov, said in a conversation that Wiebke Dorndek was “provided” to the singer by the GDR secret services in order to leave the performer in Germany. Many years later, Dean and Oleg analyzed the circumstances of their acquaintance with Dorndek and concluded that the artist’s future wife was “planted.” After breaking up with the musician, Wiebke made an excellent career at the GDR Foreign Ministry.

The singer had a civil marriage with an actress from Estonia named Eva Kivi. The couple were together for 15 years. Eva recalled in an interview how the lovers met in 1971 in Moscow. According to Kiwi, feelings flared up at first sight. When the eyes of the young people met, Dean picked the girl up in his arms and began to kiss her. The artists came from Moscow to Tallinn, and the singer performed serenades to Ewe under the window in the evenings.

Eva later said that after the first night together with Reed, a friend ran into the artist’s hotel room to sit on the bed in which Kiwi slept with the legendary musician.

For the sake of Dean Reed, the actress left her husband Ants Antson, with whom the girl had a two-year-old son. However, Dean and Ava never became husband and wife. According to Kiwi, this was primarily prevented by the artist’s previous marriage to the niece of the long-time leader of the GDR, Honecker.

As a result, the lovers were quarreled by differences in political views.

The artist returned to the GDR, where he married actress Renate Blume for the third time. The man adopted the child of Alexander's girlfriend. The lovers' wedding took place in 1981.

Renata later said that Dean conquered the actress with romantic advances. The man did everything to make her feel like the happiest woman.

Death

On June 17, 1986, the famous artist was found dead in Lake Zeuthen. This place was located near Reed's home in East Berlin. Then it was officially announced that the man had drowned. But the artist’s family believed that Dean was killed by Stasi officers because the singer had recently wanted to return to the United States. It is officially known that from 1976 to 1978 Dean Reed collaborated with the secret police.

One day, the musician’s third wife, Renata Blume, stated that her husband was killed with five blows of a knife. However, later, when documents on this case, taken from the Stasi archive, were carefully studied, official reason The artist's death was declared a suicide. This version was also followed German friends performer: after an autopsy, a powerful sleeping pill that had not completely dissolved was found in Dean’s stomach.

Later, the performer’s neighbor, General Eberhard Fansch, shared that shortly before his death, the man and his wife heard Reed quarreling with Renata. In general, quarrels between husband and wife were very frequent, and Dean more than once told his friend that he was thinking about suicide, but Fengsh managed to dissuade his friend from committing suicide. Then it became known that a suicide note addressed to the general was found in the singer’s car.

Dean Reed was buried in Rauchfangswerder (Germany). But later the artist’s mother transported her son’s ashes to the Green Montana Cemetery in Boulder (USA), where the famous performer’s grave is now located.

She wrote a song called “Don’t Let Go,” dedicated to her childhood idol. A street in the city of Tynda, Amur Region, was also named in honor of Reed.

In the early 2000s, the actor wanted to make the film “Comrade Rock Star” in memory of Dean Reed, where he was going to play the main role. But the project was never brought to life.

In 2014, a documentary film about the biography of the singer called “Dean Reed” was released. The mystery of life and death."

Discography

• 1966 – “Dean Reed Sings”
• 1970 – “Our Summer Romance”
• 1972 – “We are revolutionaries”
• 1976 – A JehoSvet
• 1976 – “Dean Reed Sings”
• 1978 – “We will say “Yes”
• 1980 – “My song for you”
• 1980 – “Rock and rolls, country, lyrical songs”
• 1982 – “Country”
• 1986 – Country Songs

The older generation of Soviet people knows the singer, actor, musician, director and composer Dean Reed. The biography and photos of this American in the Land of the Soviets were reproduced by many political and cinematic publications. In the 70s, the American magazine People Magazine wrote about the actor that Russians consider him the third most important American personality after the US President and Secretary of State. The newspapermen were disingenuous: the popularity of the mentioned politicians in our country did not even approach the fame of Dean Reed.

He would have turned eighty in 2018. During his life he published about thirty albums. However, his fate turned out to be strange, to say the least. He, of course, died at the peak of his talent, while having considerable influence on the army of his fans. Many thinking people have the impression that he became bargaining chip in too big game, from which he failed to emerge alive.

Childhood and adolescence

The future singer was born on September 22, 1938 in Colorado (Denver). There were three sons in the family. His father worked as a rural teacher, and his mother was a housewife. Dean grew up alive and active. The ten-year-old boy's parents sent him to cadet school, Where restless child I only studied for a year.

The boy was interested in horse riding, athletics, and basketball. At the age of eleven he was given a riding horse. His parents also had the imprudence to give him a guitar for his twelfth birthday, and this gift seemed to determine his fate.

Dean Reed, the always leader of the boys, grew up as a strong, impetuous guy. His biography in his youth testifies to his fickle, amorous and addicted disposition. Fate was kind to him, giving him credit for his talent. At the age of sixteen, Dean wrote his first touching love song, Don't let her go.

In 1956, following the wishes of his parents, he entered the first year of the meteorology department at the University of Colorado. During his studies, the student additionally earned pocket money by playing the guitar and performing songs in bars.

First contract

In February 1959, his song “Memory” made its way onto the American charts for the first time. Two years later, the talented performer managed to sign a contract with the Capital Records recording studio (Los Angeles).

Dean left university without regret and went to school acting Warner Brothers. After his first disc, the second, third, and fourth were released one after another. Moreover, each subsequent one testified to the growing skill of the composer and performer.

In 1961, his fourth disc, “Our Summer Romance,” took 2nd position on the US national hit parade and became a big hit in other countries. South America. In the same 1961, “hot on the heels” of his newly gained popularity, twenty-three-year-old Dean Reed went on a tour to conquer the continent closest to his homeland.

His biography as a traveling artist, singing live for his fans, begins precisely with these tours. Stately, photogenic, with a pleasant timbre of his voice, an innate, rather than acquired, artistic charm and plasticity of movements, the artist very quickly became an idol for young Latin Americans. He visits Peru, Argentina, Chile, Brazil.

Change of political views

Investigating the mysterious death of the singer, it is worth paying attention Special attention for this period of life. After all, speaking theatrical language, the beginning of the plot happened right then. Someone who quickly gained popularity suddenly finds himself outside his homeland, in a society where his familiar American values ​​are not respected. He, as an artist (and this is understandable), is trying to better understand the people who admire his songs.

In Chile, the young singer meets personally the future President Allende, a fiery orator, a man of deep intellect, and the head of the socialist revolutionary party. His new friend, carried away by the political struggle for the presidency, even then saw in the talented American, his potential supporter, a natural, heightened sense of justice. An experienced lawyer played it and won the game.

Let's take a moment away from the biography of the American for generalization. History tends to repeat certain basic patterns. Thus, in today’s confrontation between two worldviews on Arab East and in North Africa there are noticeable echoes of the events that took place in the 60s and 70s on the South American continent.

At that time, Chile was in the sphere of competing interests of Soviet and American intelligence services. Some supported Allende, others tried to remove him from politics. Almost fifty years later, only bits of this information are becoming public thanks to the memoirs of British professor and intelligence expert Christopher Andrew. However, this is not the main thing for us. The point is that Dean Reed, being in Latin America and having contact with Allende, came to the attention of foreign intelligence services.

Life of a singer in Argentina

He was admired by the youth of Latin America for his innate talent, sincerity and touching love songs. He filled stadiums in Chile, Argentina, Peru, and Brazil. Naturally, enterprising businessmen, seeing the prospect of profits in Dean, offered him a contract to work in Argentina. And the producers were not mistaken. Here he had his own television show, he was popular, fruitfully made films (“First Love”, “Guadalajara in the Summer”) and, in addition, successfully recorded extremely popular discs.

Meanwhile, his tour directors and managers were indignant. After all, Dean Reed, in addition to his creativity, was fascinated by leftist views. And above all, the fight for peace and poverty. The ideas of Marxism and the ideology of opponents of nuclear weapons became close to him. He actively participated in the political struggle, and, as we know, it is impossible to do such a thing alone.

Soon everything changed in Argentina, after the thaw there was a reaction. A dictatorial regime supported by the CIA came to power in the country in 1966. Violence has become a common practice in the fight against dissent. By this time, Dean Reed, in addition to protesting against the Vietnam War, regularly began to take part in political rallies within Argentina. The singer became an oppositionist, giving charity concerts, the proceeds of which went to prisoners.

The house of the unreliable singer was shelled several times with automatic weapons, which forced him to leave Argentina. It became impossible to remain in a country where his life was in danger.

Dean in Western Europe

Dean Reed flew from Argentina to Spain. The biography of his wanderings thus continued in Europe. However, in June, cautious Spanish authorities preferred (to be on the safe side) to label the politically active singer as unreliable and expel him from the country.

The next place of stay of the actor and singer, and quite a successful one, was cheerful and apolitical Italy. Singer Dean Reed has been quite successful and has starred in westerns by local directors. The actor’s biography says that this period of his life was bright and eventful; his filmography was enriched with romantic roles in the films “Gang of Three Chrysanthemums” (a gangster film about the Great Depression era), “Farewell to Sabata” (western), “Pirates of the Green Island” (adventure film ).

Dean Reed's acting has finally received recognition. In 1964, Guadalajara was awarded two prizes at a festival in Mexico (Acapulco).

Dean Reed in the USSR

In 1966, from October 1 to November 30, the American risked a tour “for iron curtain", to the Soviet Union. He made our listeners fall in love with him by performing the songs “Bella Ciao” ​​and “Hava Nagila”. Soviet authorities gave him the green light. The geography of his performances as a singer is impressive: Moscow, Leningrad, Tbilisi, Baku, Rostov-on-Don, Kislovodsk. And after he performed the song “Elizabeth” on TV, in the program “New Year’s Light,” his vinyl discs began to be sold out in the USSR in hundreds of thousands of copies.

The actor stars in the films “God Created Them, I Will Kill Them” and “The Nephews of Zorro.” Dean Reed writes poems “To You”, “My Poor Homeland”,

And again Chile, Argentina

Agree, if external intelligence services had worked with Dean, then this stage in his life would have been inevitable. In 1970, the singer actively participated in the election campaign of Salvador Allende. Then, inspired by the victory of democratic forces, Dean went to Argentina, where he organized a press conference in Buenos Aires at which he called for the overthrow of the dictatorial regime. He was arrested, but after 16 days he was released and deported from the country.

After his friend, President Salvador Allende, died in a military coup in Chile in 1973, the singer went to Peru in 1975, then illegally crossed the border into Chile. Here the brave activist was imprisoned for a long time, but was soon released. Adversity stimulated his talent and forced Dean, as a creative person, to create a masterpiece. In 1977, director Dean Reed made the best film of his life.

Biography of singer Victor Hara and his tragic death during the Chilean military coup served as the main motive of this film.

Let us summarize the above: the singer, headlong, semi-illegally (and this at least requires the help of the station) goes to a country hostile to his views in order to demonstrate political activity. Moreover, he guesses that he will inevitably be “imprisoned.” And this really happens. However, he is always and constantly pardoned and released. What conclusion does this suggest? At a minimum, about the intercession of influential foreign intelligence and its legal profession.

Personal life

Let's break the chronology of the story to talk about the actor's personal life. In 1964, the twenty-six-year-old actor married Hollywood actress Patty Hobs; they traveled and toured a lot. It was love. The biography of singer Dean Reed testifies: he and his first wife traveled halfway around the world. In 1967, he divorced Patty Hobs in Italy, but the feeling did not leave the former spouses, and they continued to live together, and, already divorced, their daughter Ramona was born.

The fatal quarrel happened in 1970. Patty objected to Dean going to Chile for the election campaign. When he ignored her requests, the woman left him for the USA, to live with her parents.

After this, Dean Reed lived for some time in a civil marriage with Estonian actress Eva Kivi. She, having fallen in love with him as a creative man, also categorically did not share the exaggerated political views of the American, and the couple soon separated.

His next novel should be discussed in more detail.

In 1971, Dean “accidentally” met his future second wife, a thirty-year-old teacher and model Wiebke Dornbach. After a two-year relationship, they got married. In 1976, Wiebke and Reed had a daughter, Natasha. However, already at next year After the birth of the child (unexpectedly quickly, isn’t it?) Dean Reed divorced his wife.

The biography and personal life of the singer during his second marriage give rise to some thoughts. A logical question arises: “Didn’t there take place a purely external “correction” of his fate?”

Why should we ask it? It was under the influence of Wiebke (according to his own memoirs) that the restive American Dean Reed settled in the GDR, and this strangely coincided with the interests of eastern geopolitics.

Since 1973, Dean Reed's biography has been associated with permanent residence in the GDR. This is where his home appeared. He returned here from trips. Here he recorded 13 albums. Among the films produced was the hugely successful USSR Blood Brothers (1975), a Western in which Dean starred alongside Gojko Mitic.

By the way, after her divorce from Dean, the “teacher” Wiebke Reed made a dizzying career in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (an organization where either diplomats or spies work). Such “accidents” are quite indicative. Comments, as they say, are unnecessary.

In 1981, the singer, who fell in love, married actress Renata Blume and adopted her son Alexander. Already at an age, he takes long and touching care of a woman, dreaming of finally finding his quiet bay in life. Renata also fell in love with him.

At the pinnacle of glory

The last seven years of his life were the period of maximum popularity in the world of the singer and actor. His discs come out in millions of copies. Any planned tours come true. At the same time, there is inevitably an element of politics in his activities. So, in 1978, the singer took part in a farm demonstration in Minnesota (USA). He was arrested, a trial took place, but the singer was acquitted. After which he returned to the GDR.

In 1979, he went to the Soviet Union to visit the builders of the Baikal-Amur Mainline with a concert program by Dean Reed. The biography and songs of this paradoxical American seemingly won over the entire Soviet viewing and listening audience.

The singer had another trip to the USA, perhaps fatal.

Provocation

On the threshold of his fiftieth birthday (and this is natural), Dean began, according to the recollections of the same Renata, to yearn for his homeland. In 1985, US director Will Roberts fueled interest in him documentary film"American Rebel" And when the CBS channel invited him to an interview on the TV show “60 Minutes of Red Elvis,” he had hopes of gaining popularity in his homeland.

However, he fell for the bait: politically engaged showmen pursued opposite goals. They played along with the CIA, which had a long-standing grudge against the singer.

Before the interview, the television crew deliberately pumped up the anti-Soviet audience with excerpts of tapes where Dean was filmed in Beirut, posing with an AKM; was at a meeting with Yasser Arafat; walked along Red Square. The script for the show itself matched the announcement. Americans, brought up on anti-Soviet propaganda, heard from Dean Reed, answering tendentiously selected questions, information that was certainly repulsive to them:

• support for the construction of the Berlin Wall;
• approval of the deployment of troops to Afghanistan;
• criticism of American complicity with Pinochet.

As a result, viewers flooded the studio with letters demanding that the “red” singer be kicked out of America. Dean Reed returned to the GDR morally devastated.

Version 1. Suicide

It was like a flight suddenly interrupted. The body of the forty-seven-year-old singer was found on June 13, 1986 on the southeastern outskirts of Berlin, on the shore of a lake, near the house where he lived. GDR law enforcement officers came to the conclusion of suicide.

In their opinion, there was logical evidence that America's pariah had intentionally committed suicide. But this is not at all how the biography describes the person Dean Reed was. The cause of death is likely due to the fiasco he suffered at the aforementioned show. The actor was called a traitor in the United States, although he loved his homeland and criticized its politicians. In fact, he simply knew how to share his true patriotism and their political views, which contradict generally accepted ones in America. Of course, he suffered from a lack of understanding of this by his compatriots.

What is striking is the stubborn silence of Renata Blume after the sudden death of her husband, accompanied only by the meager phrase: “I’m sure it’s not suicide,” devoid of any comments.

Later, tempting creative offers suddenly fell on the widowed actress, as if from a cornucopia (for example, the role of Jenny Marx). She is awarded prizes and titles. Isn't this a kind of payment for her silence?

However, we must pay tribute: the actress was not lying. In the interview, she hoped that the truth would become clear when documents stored in the archives of the GDR security service were revealed.

However, there was no sensation. Not long ago, the singer’s biographer Chuck Lozewski, having gained access to secret archives, published information about suicide note Dean, containing a request to his family for forgiveness, written on the back of a piece of paper from the script sent to him. In the stomach of the deceased there was an incompletely dissolved sleeping pill. The journalist concluded that Dean, having decided to commit suicide, deliberately took sleeping pills and went swimming.

Version 2. Murder

Let's consider the second version. She also has the right to exist. At the very least, a well-worn scenario is that of a person writing a suicide note under duress. The intelligence services cannot be denied the ability to cover their tracks. Or maybe Dean figured out the game that undisclosed people were playing with him?

Renata Blume in one of her interviews expressed her belief that Dean Reed could not commit suicide in such a way. The actress never believed it. She provides collateral evidence for this. He was soon going to work on a new film. According to Renata, he was “burning with him”; he had dreamed about him for several previous years. Therefore, the voluntary death of such a workaholic as Dean Reed was, and even on the eve of the coveted job, looked very unconvincing.

By the way, the relatives of the deceased share the same opinion. And (and this is important) Dean never stopped communicating with them.

Conclusion

It seemed that the whole world stood numb when it became known that the people's favorite had suddenly and unexpectedly died. of Eastern Europe and Latin America by Dean Reed. His biography, cause of death, and his songs became part of the legend about the artist - a fighter, a truly fearless, non-mercantile man who values ​​his convictions and is able to defend them, no matter how hopeless it may seem.

He was, of course, a man of remarkable talent and courage, and such a combination is worth a lot. Therefore, the foreign intelligence services of many superpowers fought for and against him. Any opponent would admit this wonderful person worthy opponent. It is easier to deceive or destroy such a person than to defeat him.