Sara Dylan given name Sara
Early life
Shirley Marlin Noznisky was born in Wilmington, Delaware, to Jewish parents Isaac and Bessie Noznisky; her father was born circa 1894 and became a US citizen in 1912. Isaac set up a scrap metal business at South Claymont Street, Wilmington. He was shot dead by a drunken fellow East European immigrant on November 18, 1956. Shirley Noznisky had one brother, Julius, 16 years her senior.
In 1959, Shirley moved to New York City and quickly married magazine photographer Hans Lownds; Shirley was his third wife. Lownds persuaded her to change her name to Sara because his first wife, also named Shirley, had left him and he did not want to be reminded of his previous marriage. Sara and Hans lived in a five-story house on 60th Street in Manhattan, between Second and Third Avenues. Sara had a modeling career and appeared in Harper's Bazaar as the 'lovely luscious Sara Lownds'—then became pregnant. Their daughter Maria was born October 21, 1961. Within a year of the birth, the marriage began to fail.
Sara started going out on her own, driving around town in an MG sports car Hans had given her, and gravitated to the youthful scene in Greenwich Village. Sometime in early 1964, she met Bob Dylan. Sara was still married to Hans when they met, and Dylan was still romantically linked to Joan Baez at the time. On why she left her husband, Hans' son from a previous marriage, Peter Lownds, stated: "Bob was the reason." Sara also had a friend, Sally Buehler, who went on to marry Dylan's manager Albert Grossman. Dylan and Sara were guests at the Grossmans' wedding in November 1964.After Hans and Sara separated, Sara went to work as a secretary for the film production division of the Time Life company, where filmmakers Richard Leacock and D. A. Pennebaker were impressed with her resourcefulness. "She was supposed to be a secretary," said Pennebaker, "but she ran the place." Sara introduced Bob Dylan and Albert Grossman to Pennebaker, the director who would make the film Dont Look Back, about Dylan's UK tour in April 1965.
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