Denver Post 15.04.2002

Dean Reed, movie star

Wish I'd saved his letters.

Dean Reed, the red-white-and-blue Colorado musical boy who went to the Eastern Bloc and became a big-time red star, used to drop me a letter now and then. I think he missed home. But his letters usually consisted of rambling rants about how communism would one day overtake America so I tossed them.

Anyway, they screened "American Rebel: The Dean Reed Story" in Boulder on Wednesday night. In the course of the evening the documentary's maker, Will Roberts, announced that Reed, who grew up in Lakewood, may get better known soon.

Roberts told the audience that Tom Hanks is interested in producing and, maybe, starring in a feature-length film on Reed's life. Andy Stonehouse reported in the Boulder Daily Camera that Steven Spielberg's Dreamworks studio "has given the project the green light with a tentative release date of May 2003."

Reed died in East Germany in 1986 and is buried in Boulder's Green Mountain Cemetery.

Dick Kreck

Link: www.DenverPost.com