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Suits me : the double life of Billy Tipton

Author: Diane Wood Middlebrook
Publisher: Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 1998.
Series: Peter Davison bk
Edition/Format:  Print book : Biography : EnglishView all editions and formats
Summary:
"Suits Me is the biography of a now notorious jazz musician named Billy Tipton, who grew up as Dorothy Tipton in Oklahoma City and Kansas City but lived as a man from the time she was nineteen until she 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 scale of his deception - he had been "married" to five  Read more...
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Genre/Form: Biography
Biographies
Additional Physical Format: Online version:
Middlebrook, Diane Wood, 1939-2007.
Suits me.
Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 1998
(OCoLC)607072271
Named Person: Billy Tipton; Billy Tipton; Billy Tipton; Billy Tipton
Material Type: Biography
Document Type: Book
All Authors / Contributors: Diane Wood Middlebrook
ISBN: 0395654890 9780395654897 0395957893 9780395957899
OCLC Number: 38179690
Notes: "A Peter Davison book."
Awards: Short-listed for Lambda Literary Awards (Transgender) 1998
Description: xvii, 326 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm.
Contents: 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).
Series Title: Peter Davison bk
Responsibility: Diane Wood Middlebrook.

Abstract:

"Suits Me is the biography of a now notorious jazz musician named Billy Tipton, who grew up as Dorothy Tipton in Oklahoma City and Kansas City but lived as a man from the time she was nineteen until she 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 scale of his deception - he had been "married" to five women and had reared several adopted children - and the scarcity of ready explanations endowed the skimpy available facts with the aura of myth." "But locked away in Billy's office closet lay files of clippings and photographs documenting the transformation of Billy from she to he, 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 she wore. These hints were so bold that they helped conceal Billy's secrets." "With brio and pathos, Suits Me tells the life story of this brilliant deceiver, who lived and loved in two skins, one of each sex."--Jacket.

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