Roz Payne

Roz Payne (born Roslyn Berkman Cristiano; October 25, 1940 – May 21, 2019) was an American political activist, director and cinematographer.

Biography

Roslyn Berkman Cristiano was born October 25, 1940 in Paterson, New Jersey to James "Jimmy" Cristiano, an Italian immigrant, and Edith Berkman, a Jewish immigrant from Poland. She was raised in a working class household by her parents who were both lifelong socialists and anti-racist activists. Her mother Edith was an organizer for the textile union in Lawrence, Massachusetts during the Great Depression, and was imprisoned and threatened with deportation for her radical activity. Her father James ran as a Socialist Party candidate for the New Jersey Senate. In the 1980s Roz visited the Soviet Union with her father, and they were seated in first class on a flight between Tbilisi and Moscow, which outraged her father who asserted that there ought to be no classes in the Soviet Union. Her parents were friends with Allen Ginsberg, who lived nearby and was sometimes Roz's babysitter. At the age of 13, Roz's mother took her to a memorial service for Emmett Till in Los Angeles. While attending grammar school in Los Angeles, Roz had a Japanese friend, Linda Fukuyama, who had been interned during World War 2.

Her family later moved to Hollywood, California where she attended UCLA. In 1962 she married her high school boyfriend Arnold Payne, a bodybuilder she described to as "Mr.