Biography
Born in Denver on September 22, 1938, Dean Reed headed to Hollywood seeking an entertainment career. Capitol Records signed the twenty-year-old and issued nine rock & roll singles that gained no traction in the United States. “Our Summer Romance” exploded across South America, so Reed launched a regional tour. The response in Chile, Argentina, Peru, and Venezuela proved so strong that he stayed to develop the following he had never found at home. Multiple singles and albums reinforced his status as one of the continent’s leading acts; screen roles and regular Buenos Aires television appearances broadened his reach still further. Reed also performed without charge inside prisons and spoke out against U.S. nuclear testing in the area. His left-leaning, pro-peace stance eventually prompted the Argentine government to deport him in 1966.
He settled briefly in Rome and appeared in spaghetti Westerns. The same year brought his first Soviet Union tour, which ignited enormous popularity. As his profile rose throughout Eastern Europe and his condemnations of American involvement in Vietnam grew louder, the U.S. State Department viewed him as an increasing problem. Reed attended international peace conferences regularly, met Fidel Castro, and made East Berlin his permanent home in 1973. There he continued recording and acting, occasionally writing and directing his own films, among them the 1981 release Sing, Cowboy, Sing. Czechoslovakia became the main site of his album sessions, whose releases then circulated through the U.S.S.R. and East Germany.
In 1985 Reed returned to Denver for a screening of the biographical documentary American Rebel; for the film he recorded the newly written song “Nobody Knows Me Back in My Hometown,” supplied by John Rosenburg. The following year he was preparing to begin the self-penned project Bloody Heart. In June 1986, just before production started, his body was recovered from a lake near his East Berlin residence; the cause was never officially established. A 1992 BBC documentary titled Comrade Rockstar, written and narrated by Reggie Nadelson and later published as a book, examined his life. German director Peter Gehrig assembled another portrait, Glamour and Protest, in 1993. Late in 2001, reports announced that Tom Hanks had committed to star in a fictionalized screen version for Dreamworks.
He settled briefly in Rome and appeared in spaghetti Westerns. The same year brought his first Soviet Union tour, which ignited enormous popularity. As his profile rose throughout Eastern Europe and his condemnations of American involvement in Vietnam grew louder, the U.S. State Department viewed him as an increasing problem. Reed attended international peace conferences regularly, met Fidel Castro, and made East Berlin his permanent home in 1973. There he continued recording and acting, occasionally writing and directing his own films, among them the 1981 release Sing, Cowboy, Sing. Czechoslovakia became the main site of his album sessions, whose releases then circulated through the U.S.S.R. and East Germany.
In 1985 Reed returned to Denver for a screening of the biographical documentary American Rebel; for the film he recorded the newly written song “Nobody Knows Me Back in My Hometown,” supplied by John Rosenburg. The following year he was preparing to begin the self-penned project Bloody Heart. In June 1986, just before production started, his body was recovered from a lake near his East Berlin residence; the cause was never officially established. A 1992 BBC documentary titled Comrade Rockstar, written and narrated by Reggie Nadelson and later published as a book, examined his life. German director Peter Gehrig assembled another portrait, Glamour and Protest, in 1993. Late in 2001, reports announced that Tom Hanks had committed to star in a fictionalized screen version for Dreamworks.
Albums
