Front cover image for Suits me : the double life of Billy Tipton

Suits me : the double life of Billy Tipton

Diane Wood Middlebrook (Author)
"Suits Me is the biography of a now notorious jazz musician named Billy Tipton, who [was assigned female at birth and grew up] in Oklahoma City and Kansas City but lived as a man from the time [he] was nineteen until [he] died at age seventy-four. Billy Tipton's death in Spokane, Washington, made news all over the world, not because he was celebrated as a musician but because the [media sensationalized his transgender identity]. [...] locked away in Billy's office closet lay files of clippings and photographs documenting the transformation of Billy [...] as well as a legacy of annotated comic routines, musical arrangements, and program notes. These revealed to Diane Wood Middlebrook how Billy scattered clues and riddles night after night about the drag [he] wore." --Jacket
Print Book, English, 1998
Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1998
Biography
xvii, 326 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm.
9780395654897, 9780395957899, 0395654890, 0395957893
38179690
Billy Tipton's family tree
Part I. Beginnings: 1889-1932. Born naked (21 January 1989 [i.e. 1889]) ; But who was she? (1889-1928) ; Kansas City (1929-1932)
Part II. From Dorothy to Billy: 1933-1940. The "in" sex (1933-1934) ; Graduation (1934-1935) ; The playboy (1935-1938) ; Reggie's daughter (1937-1940)
Part III. The impersonator: 1940-1948. Self-made man (1940-1943) ; Swinging (1943-1946) ; The son-in-law (1946-1949)
Part IV. Rising: 1949-1958. Mobility (1949-1953) ; Making it (1954-1958)
Part V. Settling: 1958-1989. Man's world (1958-1961) ; Family man (1962-1979) ; Out and down (1980-1986) ; The end (1986-1989)
"A Peter Davison book."
The Cushing Library/Women & Gender Studies copy was acquired as part of The Don Kelly Research Collection of Gay Literature and Culture