FOR more than 40 years Suze Rotolo, the fresh young blonde cuddling Bob Dylan on the cover of his breakthrough album, has kept her silence on their turbulent affair.
But now the 64-year-old artist, who still lives in her native New York, is writing an autobiography, A Freewheelin' Time, that is expected to reveal many of their secrets - including the loss of their unborn child.
Rotolo, who came from a sophisticated, liberal family, is widely regarded as Dylan's first and most influential lover when the baby-faced country boy from Minnesota arrived in New York in early 1961. She introduced him to painters and poets and to politics, inspiring him to write songs such as Blowin' in the Wind and A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall.
She was only 17 but had already organised political actions such as picketing Woolworths because it forced black and white people to eat apart.
In his memoir, Chronicles: Volume One, published in 2005, Dylan, now 66, described her as "the most erotic thing I'd ever seen". He wrote: "Meeting her was like stepping into the tales of 1001 Arabian Nights. She had a smile that could light up a street, a particular kind of voluptuousness, a Rodin sculpture come to life." She introduced him to the works of the French poet Arthur Rimbaud and the German dramatist Bertolt Brecht - writers who helped him grow from folk singer into one of the most influential musicians of the era.
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Their relationship was fraught, however. Weeks after meeting, they moved into a tiny flat in a poor area of Manhattan - much to the concern of Rotolo's mother Mary who regarded Dylan as pretentious and nicknamed him "Twerp".
As Dylan's fame grew, Rotolo became an object of public curiosity, so much so that when the chance to spend seven months away from him in Perugia came up, she took it rather than, as she reportedly told friends, "retire from my own life to become just another string on his guitar".
They got back together, shooting the iconic cover photograph for The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan in February 1963. He had already started a series of other love affairs, including the one with his fellow musician Joan Baez.
It was in the last months of the affair, when they were arguing constantly, that Rotolo became pregnant. The exact circumstances of how she lost the child remain a mystery.
Last week Rolling Stone magazine claimed the book will say Rotolo had an abortion, a suggestion that she has never discussed as it was illegal at the time. Sources close to the publisher say she has not completed her manuscript but is expected to confirm that she "lost" the baby.
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It would have been Dylan's first child and he was said to have been distraught. He went on to have four children with his first wife, former model Sara Lownds, whose daughter Maria he also adopted, and another child with his second wife, singer Carolyn Dennis.
Howard Sounes, whose 2001 bestseller Down the Highway revealed Dylan's second marriage, said he was amazed Rotolo is writing a book. "She refused to speak to me, very tersely, and tried to censor my book on even the small details like her married name," he said.
Additional reporting: Sara Hashash