The jazz pianist Billy Tipton was born in Oklahoma City as Dorothy Tipton, but almost nobody knew the truth until the day he died, in Spokane in 1989. Over a fifty-year performing career, Billy Tipton fooled nearly everyone, including Duke Ellington and Norma Teagarden, five successive "wives" with whom Billy lived as a man, and three children who he "fathered." As Billy Tipton herself said, "Some people might think I'm a freak or a hermaphrodite. I'm not. I'm a normal person. This has been my choice." This jazz-era biography evokes the rich popular-music history of the Great Depression and reads like a detective story. "Diane Middlebrook is now writing the life of Billy Tipton . . . It should be the paradigmatic biography of our time." Newsweek Diane Wood Middlebrook is the author of several volumes of poetry and criticism as well as the prizewinning bestseller Anne Sexton: A Biography. The recipient of many fellowships and awards, she is a professor emeritus at Stanford University, where she has also served as the director of the center for research on women. Suits Me The Double Life of Billy Tipton By Diane Wood Middlebrook Mariner Books Copyright © 1999 Diane Wood Middlebrook All right reserved. ISBN: 0395957893 Chapter One Born Naked 21 January 1989 You're born naked and the rest is drag. -- Drag queen RuPaul, Lettin' It All Hang Out ONE SATURDAY MORNING in January 1989, an emergency call summonedparamedics to a trailer park on the outskirts of Spokane, Washington,the home of Billy Tipton, an aging white jazz musician. Tipton hadbeen very ill, too weak to leave his bed, but had resisted allattempts to get him to a doctor. His adopted teenage son, William,had been looking after him. That morning, after carrying Billy to thebathroom, William had closed the door and, out of earshot, telephonedhis mother, Kitty. They hadn't spoken for nearly a year. Divorce haddispersed the family almost a decade earlier, and Kitty had remarried,but she could still be counted on in a crisis. She advised William todial 911 and have Billy moved to a hospital. William made the call,then went to carry his father to the breakfast table. Billy Tiptongave a deep sigh and slumped against his son, unconscious. That sigh was a secret escaping. The medics arrived almostimmediately, lay Tipton on the floor of the trailer, squatted overhim, and opened his pajamas to feel for a heartbeat. One of themturned to William and asked, "Son, did your father have a sex change?"William stepped forward and caught a glimpse of his father's upperbody, then stumbled back against the screen door and down thetrailer's steps. What had he seen? "I was in awe. I had no thoughts--justlooked up at the sky, thinking it was some hallucination fromdrugs. If my father had lived as a woman, she would have had bigbreasts." Nobody but Billy had seen that nude torso for about forty years,not even the women who had lived with him as wives. Billy was a veryprivate person, they explained later. He invariably locked thebathroom, where he washed and dressed. People who knew his habits knewthat he always wore binding on his chest to support the ribs that hadbeen fractured when the front end of a Buick had plowed into hisbody -- or so he said. And many, many people knew Billy Tipton. Spokane had been one ofthe regular stops on his trio's circuit in the early 1950s, during thebrief heyday of legal gambling in private clubs in Washington State,when a band could make a good living backing strippers, magicians,jugglers, tap dancers, any sort of variety act that would drawcustomers into the clubs to drink and play the slot machines. In 1958,Billy settled in Spokane, and the Billy Tipton Trio became the houseband at a downtown nightclub called Allen's Tin Pan Alley. Billybought a house in the Spokane Valley and started earning a secondincome as an agent in the Dave Sobol Theatrical Agency, booking themusicians. In Spokane, out of professional respect, Billy Tipton was referredto as a jazz musician. He referred to himself as an entertainer, forhe had long before given up trying to make a living at jazz, though hesmuggled it into floorshows he worked up with other members of histrio, playing a repertory of swing standards on saxophone and piano.Oklahoman by birth, he was attuned to the stingy provincial audienceshe had to please in Spokane, and he had a flair for showmanship. As anemcee, he adopted the gregarious style of the businessmen who wereregular customers at the clubs, and female fans were attracted by hisboyish good looks and his meticulous style of dress. After Billy married Kitty in 1962, they adopted three sons andinvolved themselves in the PTA and the Boy Scouts. In his work lifetoo Billy was an exemplary citizen. If a charity wanted to hold adance or a fellow musician was down on his luck, Billy Tipton was theone who would organize a benefit. He led an active public life in thecommunity for thirty years. But by the time of his