28 Facts About Billy Tipton

Billy Lee Tipton was an American jazz musician, bandleader, and talent broker.

Billy Tipton is notable for having been posthumously outed as a transgender man.

Billy Tipton played in various dance bands in the 1940s and recorded two trio albums for a small record label in the mid-1950s.

Billy Tipton stopped performing in the late 1970s due to arthritis.

Billy Tipton lived and identified as male for most of his adult life.

Billy Tipton is considered a prominent figure in transgender history in the United States.

Billy Tipton's story inspired various fictional retellings, including the 1998 novel Trumpet, and a 2020 documentary film, No Ordinary Man.

Billy Lee Tipton was born in Oklahoma City on December 29,1914.

Billy Tipton grew up in Kansas City, Missouri, where he was raised by an aunt after his parents divorced when he was four.

Billy Tipton was not allowed to join the all-male school band at Southwest High School.

Billy Tipton returned to Oklahoma for his final year of high school and joined the school band at Connors State College High School.

Around 1933, Billy Tipton started binding his breasts and presenting stereotypically masculine traits.

In 1936, Billy Tipton was the leader of a band playing on KFXR radio.

In 1938, Billy Tipton joined Louvenie's Western Swingbillies, a band that played on radio station KTOK and had a steady gig at Brown's Tavern.

Billy Tipton then played music in Texas for two years.

In 1949, Billy Tipton began touring the Pacific Northwest with Meyer.

Billy Tipton began playing piano alone at the Elks Club in Longview, Washington, in 1951.

The Billy Tipton Trio recorded two albums of jazz standards for Tops: Sweet Georgia Brown and Billy Tipton Plays Hi-Fi on Piano, both released early in 1957.

In 1958, after the success of both albums, the Billy Tipton Trio was offered a position as house band at the Holiday Hotel casino in Reno, Nevada, as well as opening for fellow musician Liberace.

Billy Tipton declined both offers, choosing instead to move to Spokane, Washington, where he worked as a talent broker and the trio performed weekly.

Billy Tipton was never legally married, but five women called themselves Mrs Billy Tipton during his life.

In 1934, Billy Tipton began living with a woman named Non Earl Harrell.

For seven years, Billy Tipton lived with Betty Cox, who was 18 or 19 years old when they first met, and eventually became involved.

Maryann later stated that in 1960, she discovered that Billy Tipton had become involved with nightclub dancer Kathleen "Kitty" Kelly.

In 1989, Billy Tipton had symptoms which he attributed to the emphysema he had contracted from heavy smoking and refused to call a doctor.

Billy Tipton was actually suffering from a hemorrhaging peptic ulcer which, left untreated, was fatal.

Billy Tipton left wills: one handwritten and not notarized that left everything to William Jr.

Two of his adopted sons changed their names not long after learning of Billy Tipton's assigned gender, as they felt Billy Tipton behaved deceptively.