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Guide to "Suits Me: The Double Life of Billy Tipton" Research and Production Records
SC0608
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Call Number: SC0608
Creator:
Middlebrook, Diane Wood, 1939-2007
Title: "Suits Me: The Double Life of Billy Tipton" research and production records
Dates: 1897-1998
Bulk Dates: 1989-1998
Physical Description:
8.5 Linear feet
Summary: Research files, including interview audio recordings and transcripts; notes; correspondence; clippings; photographs; photocopies;
and other materials accumulated by Diane Middlebrook in preparation for writing
Suits Me: The Double Life of Billy Tipton. Also includes draft versions, page proofs, and a signed first edition of the book; correspondence with publisher Houghton-Mifflin;
clippings of reviews and other publicity for the book; and correspondence received by Middlebrook in response to the book.
Language(s): The materials are in English.
Repository:
Dept. of Special Collections & University Archives.
Stanford University Libraries.
557 Escondido Mall
Stanford, CA 94305
Email: speccollref@stanford.edu
Phone: (650) 725-1022
URL: http://library.stanford.edu/spc
Gift of Diane Wood Middlebrook, 2001.
Audio recordings in box 16 are closed pending reformatting. Research files in box 17 are restricted until 2059. Other materials
are open for research; materials must be requested at least 24 hours in advance of intended use.
Property rights reside with the repository. Literary rights reside with the creators of the documents or their heirs. To obtain
permission to publish or reproduce, please contact the Public Services Librarian of the Dept. of Special Collections.
[Identification of item], "Suits Me: The Double Life of Billy Tipton" Research and Production Records (SC0608). Dept. of Special
Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
A number of published sources consulted by Middlebrook during her research for Suits Me were transferred to the university
archives along with her files. Items which were available in the Stanford University Libraries general collection at the time
this collection was processed were removed. A list of items removed is available in the repository. Items not held by Stanford
were retained and are located at the end of Series 1.
Biography / Administrative History
Diane Wood Middlebrook (1939-2007), biographer and longtime professor of English at Stanford University, was educated at the
University of Washington (A.B., 1961) and Yale University (M.A, 1962; Ph.D., 1968). She joined the Department of English at
Stanford in 1966 and remained there until 2002, when she left to focus on her writing full-time. Although she also published
literary criticism and poetry, Middlebrook is best known for her biographies: Anne Sexton, A Biography (1991), Suits Me: The
Double Life of Billy Tipton (1998), and Her Husband: Hughes and Plath, a Marriage (2003).
Middlebrook was approached by Kitty Oakes, the fifth and final wife of jazz musician Billy Tipton, in 1991 while on a promotional
tour for Anne Sexton. Tipton's death in 1989 made international news after it was discovered that he was a woman who had been
living as a man for over fifty years. Oakes proposed that Middlebrook write a book about Tipton and offered Middlebrook exclusive
access to family papers and photographs. For the next several years Middlebrook conducted extensive research, including interviews
with Oakes, other family members, friends, and music industry associates of Billy Tipton. The biography, titled Suits Me:
The Double Life of Billy Tipton, was published by Houghton Mifflin in 1998.
Scope and Content of Collection
The collection consists of Middlebrook's research files, including audio recordings and transcripts of interviews; notes;
correspondence; clippings; photographs; photocopies of vital records and related primary source documents; and other materials
accumulated in preparation for writing
Suits Me: The Double Life of Billy Tipton. The research files include a subseries of files accumulated by Gerry Everding, an Oklahoma City-based journalist who worked
on the book project as a research assistant. Middlebrook's files document both Tipton's life and the local music scenes in
which he participated. The subject files designated "Afterlife of Billy Tipton" contain information on other works based on
Tipton's life, including several plays and musicals.
Also included are a draft of the book, page proofs, an advance reading copy, and a signed first edition; correspondence with
publisher Houghton Mifflin; clippings of reviews and other publicity for the book; and correspondence received by Middlebrook
in response to the book.
The materials are arranged in five series: Series 1: Research Files; Series 2: Production Files; Series 3: Response to Book;
Series 4: Photographs; and Series 5: Audio Materials. Files are arranged alphabetically within each series. Although Series
5 is closed pending preservation reformatting, a list of the audio materials it contains is available in the repository.
Tipton, Billy, 1914-1989.
Biography as a literary form.
Jazz musicians--United States--Biography.
Transgender people--United States--Biography.