Who Was Bob Dylan's Girlfriend Suze Rotolo? Meet the Real Person Behind Elle Fanning'sA Complete UnknownCharacter—and Why Dylan Wanted Her Name Changed

Mar. 15, 2025

Elle Fanning and Timothée Chalamet are seen on location for ‘A Complete Unknown’ on June 11, 2024 in Hoboken, New Jersey. ; Bob Dylan and Suze Rotolo in September 1961 in New York City.Photo:Gotham/GC Images ; Michael Ochs Archives/Getty

Gotham/GC Images ; Michael Ochs Archives/Getty

The 2024 biopicA Complete UnknownrevisitsBob Dylan’s rise to fame and details one of his most important relationships.

In the film, which starsTimothée Chalametas Dylan, the “Like a Rolling Stone” musician’s live-in girlfriend is named Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning). But in real life, his famous New York muse was the late artist Susan “Suze” Rotolo.

The pair dated from 1961 to 1964 and were famously photographed for the cover of his 1963 albumThe Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. Dylan and Rotolo’s time together inspired many of the singer’s early hits like “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right," “One Too Many Mornings” and “Tomorrow Is a Long Time.”

Writer-director James Mangold toldDeadlinein December 2024 that Dylan requested they not use Rotolo’s real name inA Complete Unknown, which came out on Dec. 25.

So, who is Sylvie Russo based on inA Complete Unknown? Here’s everything to know about Bob Dylan’s real-life ex-girlfriend, Suze Rotolo, and her relationship with the singer.

She was born in New York City

Bob Dylan and his girlfriend Suze Rotolo pose for a portrait in September 1961 in New York City.Michael Ochs Archives/Getty

Michael Ochs Archives/Getty

Susan Elizabeth Rotolo was born on Nov. 20, 1943, in New York City. Both of her parents were members of the Communist Party: Her mother was an editor for an Italian-language Communist newspaper, and her father was an artist and a union organizer, perThe New York Times. Rotolo’s father died when she was 14.

In a 2008 interview withNPR, Rotolo said that she kept her parents’ political affiliations a secret until 1989 — which helped her understand Dylan’s desire to keep his real name,Robert Zimmerman, private. Rotolo discovered Dylan’s birth name when he accidentally dropped his wallet, and his draft card fell out.

“I saw his name and I was really - that’s when I was hurt,” she said. “I said you never told me that this was your real name. I understand you didn’t tell anybody else, but you could have at least told me.”

She was an artist and activist

Elle Fanning as Sylvie Russo in ‘A Complete Unknown’ (2024).Searchlight Pictures

Searchlight Pictures

Like Dylan, Rotolo was involved in N.Y.C.’s folk revival scene. She made jewelry, illustrated and painted before finding her niche in book art, creating booklike pieces from found objects. She also taught at the Parsons School of Design, perNPR.

Rotolo was also an activist for the civil rights movement. While dating Dylan, she worked for the Congress for Racial Equality and participated in demonstrations against American nuclear policy. The artist remained politically active throughout her life.

In 2004, she joined a theater troupe called Billionaires for Bush and protested at the Manhattan Republican convention under the pseudonym Alla DaPie.

She met Dylan at a folk concert

Val Wilmer/Redferns

In July 1961, Rotolo attended a folk concert at the Riverside Church in Manhattan, where Dylan was performing. In his 2004 memoirChronicles: Volume 1, the singer said that “right from the start” he couldn’t take his eyes off Rotolo.

“She was the most erotic thing I’d ever seen,” Dylan wrote. “She was fair skinned and golden haired, full-blood Italian. The air was suddenly filled with banana leaves. We started talking and my head started to spin. Cupid’s arrow had whistled past my ears before, but this time it hit me in the heart and the weight of it dragged me overboard.”

When asked what she thought of that excerpt, Rotolo told NPR that it was a “wonderful and generous and a lovely thing.” In her 2008 memoir,A Freewheelin’ Time: A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties, she described Dylan as “oddly old-time looking, charming in a scraggly way.”

The pair started dating almost immediately and moved into a walk-up apartment in Greenwich Village.

She was on the cover of one of his albums​​

The cover for Bob Dylan’s 1963 album ‘The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan', featuring Dylan and girlfriend Suze Rotolo walking near their apartment in Greenwich Village, New York City.Blank Archives/Archive Photos/Getty

Blank Archives/Archive Photos/Getty

Rotolo was famously photographed with Dylan for the cover of his 1963 albumThe Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. She described the reasoning behind her outfit choice toThe New York Timesin 2008.

“It was freezing out,” the artist said. “He wore a very thin jacket, because image was all. Our apartment was always cold, so I had a sweater on, plus I borrowed one of his big, bulky sweaters. On top of that I put on a coat. So I felt like an Italian sausage.”

In her NPR interview, Rotolo said when she did the photo shoot, she had no idea how much of an impact it would have on her life. Even though it was her “identifier” for years, she said the iconic image was far from her identity.

“I thought it was a great cover, very unusual cover for the time,” she said. “And the first time I saw it was … in black and white and blown up very big and that really made an impression. It was almost embarrassing.”

Dylan wrote songs about their relationship — and breakup

In 1962, Rotolo went to study art in Italy for eight months. She told NPR that she was supposed to go after high school, but a car accident had derailed her plans. When Rotolo was offered the opportunity again, she took it but Dylan didn’t want her to go.

“He did say don’t go, but he didn’t want to restrict me from considering going at the same time,” she said. “And it was a difficult decision for me.”

The musician wrote multiple songs about Rotolo’s leaving, including “Boots of Spanish Leather.” When she returned home, Rotolo learned that people who heard the tracks blamed her for making him “suffer.”

“I’ve always been a shy person, so to have this relationship kind of thrown right out there in public was very horrible,” she said. “I was very private. I didn’t go broadcasting things around, and yet people seemed to know how I had made him suffer. Publicly, he was letting that out. But I see that that was just his way of working through it, making it part of his art. But at the time, I just felt so exposed.”

Sometime after her return, Dylan had a public affair with fellow folk singerJoan Baez, with whom he had started performing. Rotolo moved out of their apartment in August 1963 and, after discovering she was pregnant, had an abortion. The couple called it quits in 1964.

“The alliance between Suze and me didn’t turn out exactly to be a holiday in the woods,” Dylan wrote in his memoir. “Eventually fate flagged it down and it came to a full stop. It had to end. She took one turn in the road and I took another.”

Dylan famously penned “Ballad in Plain D” about an argument he got into with Rotolo and her sister, per theAmerican Songwriter. He later told author Bill Flanagan in 1985 that he regretted the song, saying, “I must have been a real schmuck to write that. I look back at that particular one and say, of all the songs I’ve written, maybe I could have left that alone.”

Dylan said Rotolo strongly influenced his music

Bob Dylan poses for a portrait on May 3, 1966 at the Mayfair Hotel in the UK.Cummings Archives/Redferns

Cummings Archives/Redferns

“She’ll tell you how many nights I stayed up and wrote songs and showed them to her and asked her: ‘Is this right?’ ” Dylan said. “Because her father and her mother were associated with unions and she was into this equality-freedom thing long before I was.”

She later married an Italian film editor

In 1967, Rotolo married an Italian film editor named Enzo Bartoccioli. Though she initially met him during her earlier trip to Italy, she told NPR that they didn’t meet up again until many years later.

After living in Italy, the couple moved to the United States in the 1970s. They shared one son together, Luca Bartoccioli.

She died in 2011

Bob Dylan walking with his girlfriend Suze Rotolo in September 1961 in New York City.Michael Ochs Archives/Getty

Rotolo died at her Manhattan home on Feb. 25, 2011, after a long journey with lung cancer. She was 67.

Dylan and Rotolo stayed in touch over the years. After their relationship was over, he helped her when an apartment fire destroyed most of her things — including the famous green coat she wore on his album cover, perThe Guardian.

Dylan asked to change Rotolo’s name forA Complete Unknown

Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan and Elle Fanning as Sylvie Russo in ‘A Complete Unknown’ (2024).Searchlight Pictures

She continued, “It was a very special relationship for him, so I felt a real responsibility to kind of capture that essence of their young adulthood and time together and essence of her as best as I could.”

source: people.com