Early Life
Mary was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts, on January 28, 1910, the daughter of Italian immigrants Sisto Pezzati and his wife Cesarina née Opizzi. Her older brother was Pietro Pezzati, who was a noted American portrait painter.
While in Boston, Rotolo dated B. F. Skinner and 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 supposedly to report on the Spanish Civil War but she was, in fact, working for the communists as a courier between Spain and Italy supplying American passports for Italian communists so they could leave Italy and join the International Brigades fighting in Spain. On her return, she went to New York City, where she wrote for various liberal newspapers.
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