Digging Into John and Yoko in New York

Because she is so passionate about diving deep to discover truth in the muddy waters of historical events, Rosemary Rotondi has enjoyed an extremely successful career as a noted archival researcher. In April 2025, she was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the RiverRun International Film Festival for her extraordinary work. 

For over 30 years, archival researcher Rosemary Rotondi has been a “super sleuth” for documentary filmmakers. Carefully combing through archival records, photos, and videos, she has provided crucial historical documentation for films such as Stanley Nelson’s 2022 Academy Award Nominee (for “Best Documentary Picture”) Attica and 2015’s Academy Award-winning CitizenFour (“Best Documentary”). Currently showing on Netflix is American Murder: Gabby Petito, on which Rosemary is lead researcher.

So, it’s no surprise that in 2022, when acclaimed director Kevin Macdonald wanted to supplement the archival film research team helping him create the new film One to One: John and Yoko, he asked his producer to ring up New York City’s own Rosemary Rotondi. Never realizing that Rotondi was a lifelong Beatles fan, Macdonald sought her expertise to conduct extensive U.S.-based archival research into John Lennon, Yoko Ono, and dozens of topics linked to the Lennons in 1971 through 1973. Rotondi was delighted to take on such a challenging and exciting project.

For the next six months, Rotondi investigated diverse subjects for Macdonald’s film: Jerry Rubin, Allen Ginsberg, Native American Activism, the Black Panthers, John Sinclair, and the Irish Troubles. Big topics.

There were smaller topics as well. For example, because John and Yoko constantly kept the television set on inside their Greenwich Village flat at 105 Bank Street, Rotondi needed to pinpoint the most popular American television commercials between 1971-1973, and she was asked to identify key news events of the day as well. Rotondi observed, “John loved television and had it on all the time. I think it was his way to calm down, to give himself over…like a visual Valium or something. Both John and Yoko loved keeping up with the news, but they also enjoyed crazy things on television as well…like the Gong Show.” Because so many scenes in One to One would highlight the presence of television in the Lennons’ home, Rosemary’s meticulous work was quite important.

“When I completed that phase of the research,” Rotondi explained, “I went down to the Municipal Archives to conduct research. I was shocked; they had a lengthy surveillance film of the Lennons attending an anti-Vietnam march and also speaking on stage in Central Park about ending the war in Vietnam. It was clear that John and Yoko were truly perceived as a threat. Many clips showed John speaking ardently about ending apathy among young people. He wanted youth to feel empowered, to know that they could really affect change.”

Those protests, Rotondi said, had a cumulative effect. “John and Yoko kept showing up and showing up…appearing at anything significant in New York City. It was really wonderful to see their teamwork. They were on the same page…with incredible devotion to the project of peace and to each other.”

Doing this extensive archival research, Rotondi told me, was never ordinary. One day “while researching the Lennons and President Nixon at the Nixon Presidential Library, I found a very unusual clip of the Ray Coniff Singers in which one of the female singers unfurled an anti-Vietnam War flag and spoke out about [the anti-war work of the Jesuit priests,] the Berrigan Brothers. Of course, as you might expect, I also discovered a great many films of protest marches as well. President Nixon monitored anti-Vietnam War activists.” She paused. “On a lighter note, I also found John and Yoko’s interview on The Dick Cavett Show, one of the TV programs on which John and Yoko were prominent guests. Kevin [Macdonald] artfully used snippets of this program to create a mosaic in One to One. Pretty amazing stuff…some of it, quite amusing.”

But there were other topics that were not as upbeat. As the inspiration for John and Yoko’s “One to One” benefit concert at Madison Square Garden, Rotondi delved into news reports concerning abuse in New York’s Willowbrook State School for children with intellectual disabilities – documentation of horrific conditions including overcrowding, unsanitary living conditions, and mental, physical and sexual abuse of children.

“Studying Geraldo Rivera’s exposé on the absolutely horrifying events at the state school as well as numerous newspaper, radio, and television reports of what became known as ‘The Willowbrook Tragedy’ was imperative,” Rotondi said, “and quite gruesome. I wasn’t prepared for how horrible that situation really was.” With John’s feelings of childhood abandonment at the forefront in 1970, during his Primal Scream therapy with Arthur Janov, the Willowbrook story must have really impacted him in a very personal way. “It was hard for me to read the grisly reports and see footage of what had been discovered,” Rotondi commented. “I could imagine how much this must have touched John…and Yoko as well, who was going through her own tragedy at this time.”

“I think a lot of people,” Rotondi added thoughtfully, “have forgotten that Yoko’s beautiful daughter was abducted in 1971.  She had zero idea where Kyoko was. How Yoko managed to put one foot in front of the other…” Rotondi shook her head, “I don’t know how she did it. I really don’t.”

“But,” Rotondi reminded me, “that wasn’t the only thing the Lennons were facing.” There was another serious threat to their freedom. The United States government was actively campaigning to have John deported over a minor marijuana charge years earlier. “I spent hours watching deportation network news footage,” Rotondi said. “And over and over, John kept saying, ‘I can’t be deported! I have to stay in the States! We’ve got to find our daughter! We can’t move back overseas!’ John and Yoko were convinced that Kyoko was somewhere in the U.S., and they were determined to stay in the States to find her. With these two events happening side by side – that must have been almost too much to fathom.”

I asked Rosemary whether, during her research, she had the chance to work directly with Sean Lennon, who played a significant role in the One to One: John and Yoko project. “No,” she shook her head, “and I would have loved to! But Kevin Macdonald and his co-director Sam Rice-Edwards did get me tickets to see the film when it premiered at DOCNYC, and that was very special.”

The chance to work on a project that spoke to the archival researcher and the Beatle fan in Rotondi was quite a treat: “It was a tremendous amount of fun. Because John and Yoko were so good at documenting themselves as a couple, I was able to watch their films of everyday activism…things they did together in the art world. Sean Ono Lennon also provided Kevin Macdonald with a never-before-seen low-resolution, black-and-white film of the couple at a feminist gathering in Harvard University: John was the only man there. He was sitting there, looking a little sheepish. It was rather funny!” Rotondi laughed. “And Kevin [Macdonald] used all of the archival research in such an imaginative, fantastic way. I’m just so proud to have been a part of it all, Jude. It’s a very nontraditional documentary. Very energetic. Wait ‘til you see it…you’ll love it!”

With that kind of insider endorsement, who could resist?

-Jude Southerland Kessler

Fair use image from One to One documentary