Yet, at least in later years, Rotolo was not quiet about her role in his story. With Bob β¦ image was all. Maybe in some ways. In others, not so much. Bob needed to be front and center. Uncharacteristically, Dylan later admitted that it was a bit much. Rotolo, born in Brooklyn in and raised in Sunnyside, Queens, described herself as a red diaper baby. Her parents were both communists; her father Giochino, an illustrator and union organizer, died from a heart attack in , and her mother, Mary, worked as a journalist for a commie newspaper.
Mary eventually remarried and relocated with her daughters to an apartment on Sheridan Square in Greenwich Village. There, Suze and her sister, Carla, gravitated to the early s folk scene. I thought he was oddly old time looking, charming in a scraggly way. There was a lot for him to glean from city girl Rotolo, despite her being two years younger.
But Bob had an incredible something. From the start, people saw something special in him. Neither had a permanent address at the time. Rotolo was house-sitting on Waverly Place. Dylan couch-surfed downtown. Following a rave review in the Times and a deal with Columbia Records, he rented the top floor pad in a walk-up on West Fourth Street.
But there was a complication with her moving in with him. When Rotolo eventually did move in, her mother hated the arrangement. Dylan is tough. Dylan, who came from Hibbing, Minnesota, was hellbent on reinvention β and, as highlighted in the film, claimed that he ran away with a circus and was taught guitar by cowboys. Rotolo is said to have found out his real name by peeking into his wallet and seeing an ID issued to Robert Alan Zimmerman. But the meaning is clear. She turned him on.
It was a sign of things to come. I unselfishly tended to his needs and desires β¦ I found nothing complimentary in that description. They continued to see each other, leading to an alleged surprise pregnancy and abortion, which was illegal in New York at the time. But to paraphrase Dylan, the scars of broken love never heal. While Dylan became one of the most lauded musicians in the world, his former lover made her own way: having a son with Bartoccioli and developing a notable art career.
