I was watching a silly film on cable called “Marigold” - about a US actress who moves to India and gets involved with Bollywood - and suddenly I remembered the story of Dean Reed.
Here is the Wikipedia entry of Dean Reed’s story.
Short version if you don’t want to click the link:
Dean Reed was from Colorado - tried to make a career as a singer here in the US with some moderate success - and then moved to Argentina where he became somewhat well-known and got into some leftist political activities. He eventually moved/was deported and settled in what was then East Germany and lived there until he died. At the time of his death, it was ruled accidental drowning. Since then, it has come out that it was a suicide after his story was told on 60 Minutes and he he felt he embarrassed his family back in the US and felt remorse.
I thought the story would make a good film - and apparently Tom Hanks thinks the same and has optioned it for perhaps a future film.
The reason this story resonates with me is that back then before the Wall came down, when I lived in West Berlin, I used to go to East Berlin quite a bit on weekends. As an American, I could go to East Berlin on 24 hour visas - and as a poor American living in pricey West Berlin, it was fun to go over to the East, cash my money on the black market at 5 to 1 rates, and party hearty at the East Berlin bars and clubs - of which there were many of those. Life might have sucked the big one over there, but they certainly knew how to party and get drunk fast and cheaply. Fun place to hang out - for a night.
I had never heard of Dean Reed until East German friends mentioned him in conversation. They all considered him a party tool and had no great love for him or his talent, but I was intrigued by the story of an American who would move - lock, stock and barrel - to East Germany. He lived a rather charmed life in East Berlin and was buddies with Eric Honecker - the despised leader of East Germany. They would put him on stage at party events and have him perform - proving that even Americans loved East Germany and would be happy to live there. And Dean Reed also towed the East German party line in every respect and proudly stood among those political and military leaders. He was privy to nice housing and all the perks of the top party politicos.
To live in East Berlin was an entirely different concept than going over for a night of debauchery in the clubs and bars - it was a horrible, totalitarian regime, with Stasi everywhere - snooping into your personal life and imprisoning people for no real reason - and the quality of life was pretty dismal; they had the bare minimum of food and goods, but there was no getting around the fact that life in East Germany (DDR) was a sad and soul-sucking existence in sub-standard housing with few amenities and no personal freedoms. I knew of people who would party with me one weekend, and the following weekend I would hear they had been thrown in prison for breaking some trivial law and never seen or heard from again.
Dean Reed does represent something else though - the choice of being a failure in your music/film/stage career at home, or being successful and famous in totalitarian regime?
I guess you could compare this to being a nobody here in the US today, but suddenly discovering you could be a super star in North Korea.
My question is:
Given the choice, would you choose fame and (relative) fortune in a totalitarian regime over being a “nobody” in your home country?