Mary Pezzati

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Mary Pezzati Rotolo (1910 - 1990) was an American writer and political activist. Her daughters were Suze and Carla Rotolo. Suze Rotolo was one of Bob Dylan's early girlfriends.

[edit] Early Life

Mary was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1910, the daughter of Italian immigrants Sisto and Cesarina (Opizzi) Pezzati. Her older brother was Pietro Pezzati, who became an American portrait painter.

While in Boston, Mary was acquainted with Conlon Nancarrow, who later renounced his American citizenship because of his membership in the Communist Party. In the 1930s she traveled to Spain to report on the Spanish Civil War. On her return, she went to New York City, where she wrote for various liberal newspapers.

[edit] Marriage and Children

She married Joachim Rotolo in New York and they had two daughters, Carla and Susan (Suze). Mary and her husband were also friends with American writer Charles Flato who, it was discovered only in the 1990s, was a Soviet spy.

Joachim Rotolo died before Suze met and dated Bob Dylan in the early 1960s. When Mary's daughters knew Bob Dylan she thought very little of him and later remembered him as "a twerp" and remarked to a biographer that he had "green teeth."

[edit] Bob Dylan on Mary Rotolo

Dylan had this to say about his girlfriend Suze's mother:

"Mary, though, who worked as a translator for medical journals, wasn't having it. Mary lived on the top floor of an apartment building on Sheridan Square and treated me like I had the clap. If she would have had her way, the cops would have locked me up.

"Suze's mom was a small feisty woman-volatile with black eyes like twin coals that could burn a hole through you, was very protective. Always make you feel like you did something wrong. She thought I had a nameless way of life and would never be able to support anybody, but I think it went much deeper than that. I think I just came in at a bad time.

"She glared at me, cigarette in her mouth. She was always trying to goad me into some kind of argument. My presence was so displeasing to her, but it's not like I'd caused any trouble in her life. It wasn't me who was responsible for the loss of Suze's father or anything. Once I said to her that I didn't think she was being fair. She stared squarely into my eyes like she was staring at some distant, visible object and said to me, 'Do me a favor, don't think when I'm around.' Suze would tell me later that she didn't mean it. She did mean it, though. She did everything in her power to keep us apart, but we went on seeing each other anyway."

Mary Pezzati Rotolo died in 1990 from lung cancer.