Suze Rotolo(1943-2011)
- Art Department
Susan Elizabeth Rotolo was born on 20 November 1943 in Queens, New
York, USA. She was the youngest daughter of Joachim Rotolo and his
wife, Mary Pezzati. She has one older sister named Carla. In 1961, Suze
met the then little known folk singer Bob Dylan at a live radio folk
extravaganza broadcast from Riverside Church, where he was performing.
She was seventeen and Bob was twenty. They immediately began dating.
Bob has said their first meeting, "She was the most erotic thing I had
ever seen". She and Bob lived together in Greenwich Village for two
years, and Bob wrote several of his most famous love songs for her.
However, their relationship ended badly when he left her for folk
singer Joan Baez. In 1963, Suze had discovered she was pregnant with
Bob's child, but decided to get an abortion. In 1972, she married Enzo
Bartoccioli and they had a son who now works as a guitarist. Suze and
her husband currently live in New York, where she teaches art at the
Parsons School of Design.