Dean Reed

Dean Cyril Reed was an American actor, singer and songwriter, director, and social activist who lived a great part of his adult life in South America and then in East Germany. Nicknamed the Red Elvis, Reed was the best-selling Western performer in the Socialist countries, with his songs traditionally were topping the local charts, and millions of his records were sold in the Socialist bloc and elsewhere mostly under the Melodiya label. He never renounced his U.S. citizenship and always claimed his life-long faithfulness to the United States albeit often denouncing the U.S. government, and was seen by the Western media as a Communist propaganda beacon.