American singer and actor Dean Reed is a phenomenon. Largely ignored in the West, he was a huge star in South America and the Eastern bloc countries during the Cold War. Dean Reed was a political idealist who loved to entertain, a showman who lived in the GDR; a ladies’ man in search of his great love, who saw in Socialism the fulfilment of his personal utopia. He performed German Schlager at “Kessel Buntes”, and also had himself photographed in the Lebanon with a machine gun slung over his shoulder.