American jazz musician who lived life as a man, finding this the only way to be accepted as a competent musician. He was talented on piano and saxophone and found that once the male identity was established, that it was easier to just play it out. He played with bands such as “Jack Teagarden,” “Russ Carlyle” and “Scott Cameron,” a jazzman extraordinaire, a gifted pianist and saxophonist.
Age 14 when his folks divorced, he stayed with his dad and was raised mostly by an aunt and her husband in Kansas City. When he first got musical gigs as a man, the die was cast. Tipton never hit the big-time but he lived his life in the field of his choice, and during the ’30s and ’40s, crisscrossed the country playing Dixieland to an appreciative audience.
Baby faced and likable, he was married to women four times and a devoted father to three adopted sons. In his marriages, none of his partners ever saw her nude; he used sexual devices and two of the wives claimed he was a considerate lover. Though he was not large, 5′ 4″ with large hips and had a high singing voice, no-one ever questioned his gender. Billy always wore a T-shirt and an athletic cup outside of his underwear.
In 1960 he met Kitty Oaks, a buxom, red-haired exotic dancer. A few years later they adopted the three boys, and Billy played ball, took them camping and repaired their bikes. By 1979, the family had fallen apart. After quarreling non-stop with Kitty, two of the boys moved out, followed by Billy a few months later. He moved into a mobile home where the boys joined him.
His last years were grim. Bursitis and arthritis had ended his musical career in 1973 and there was meager income. Tipton died of a bleeding ulcer on 1 February 1989, with very little money, living in a mobile home park. The secret of his sexuality came out upon his death.
Billy’s boys, Jon Clark, 26, Scott, 26 and Billy Jr., 19, were left bewildered; there had not been the slightest suspicion that their dad was female. “Dad was always there for us,” said Jon. “He did a good job, that’s what mattered.”
Link to Wikipedia biography