Bob Dylan’s Girlfriend ‘Sylvie’ in ‘A Complete Unknown’: The Real Story

The movie “A Complete Unknown” prominently features a relationship between iconic singer Bob Dylan and his girlfriend, presented as Sylvie Russo.

The character is torn out of a page of real life; however, Dylan’s girlfriend was named Suze Rotolo, not Sylvie Russo.

Their relationship, which lasted from 1961 to 1964 in real life, according to Parade, does closely track with the movie. She was his muse. According to The New York Times, her views on social equity issues influenced Dylan. The Los Angeles Times described Rotolo, at the time she met Dylan in the 1960s, as a “17-year-old art- and poetry-loving civil rights activist from Queens.”

The Real ‘Sylvie’ Was Featured on a Legendary Bob Dylan Album Cover

GettyBob Dylan holding his acoustic guitar and his girlfriend Suze Rotolo.

One of Dylan’s most iconic album covers was for “Freewheelin’,” and it featured him walking down the street with Rotolo in Greenwich Village, according to The New York Times.

That image, shot in 1963, made Dylan and Rotolo “the poster children of a generation,” The Guardian reported.

That image in particular catapulted Rotolo into a lifetime of Dylan association, even though they didn’t date that long. He would go on to marry two other women – Sara Lownds and backup dancer Carolyn Dennis – and have six kids, none with Rotolo. As the movie shows, he also had a tumultuous relationship with folk singer Joan Baez.

Yet her imprint has remained all the same. According to her obituary in The New York Times, Rotolo “strongly influenced his early songwriting.” She was a social activist who was the daughter of Communists, The Guardian reported, adding that she also introduced Dylan, who was from Minnesota, to writers and poets.

“We had something to say,” Rotolo wrote, according to the Guardian, “and believed that the times would definitely change”

Suze Rotolo, Who Died of Lung Cancer in 2011, Was Described by Bob Dylan as ‘the Most Erotic Thing I’d Ever Seen’

GettyRock and pop music memorabilia is displayed by Christie’s 21 November 2006 at the Hard Rock Cafe in New York, including a demonstration album of “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan”, 1963, from the personal archives of Suze Rotolo, the woman in the album cover photo with Dylan, estimated at USD 8000 to 12 000.

Rotolo passed away in 2011 from lung cancer at the age of 67, The Times reported. At the time, she was married to another man.

According to The Times, she met Dylan at age 17 (he was 20) at the Riverside Church folk concert in Manhattan.

“Right from the start I couldn’t take my eyes off her,” Dylan wrote in his memoir, according to The Times.

“She was the most erotic thing I’d ever seen. 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.”

Suze Rotolo, the Real ‘Sylvie,’ Later Worked as an Artist

GettyBob Dylan and his girlfriend Suze Rotolo, who was the inspiration for the character Sylvie.

According to The Los Angeles Times, Rotolo later worked as an artist. The Guardian described her in later life as a “trained artist and jewelry maker.”

For her part, Rotolo said that Dylan “made me think of Harpo Marx, impish and approachable, but there was something about him that broadcast an intensity that was not to be taken lightly,” The LA Times reported.

The Times noted that historians believe Rotolo “inspired numerous Dylan songs, including ‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right’ and “’Tomorrow Is a Long Time.'”