‘No Ordinary Man’ retells the story of Billy Tipton

Above : The documentary “No Ordinary Man” will open in New York, Los Angeles on July 16th.. (Photo/Oscilloscope)

If the name Billy Tipton seems familiar, it’s because that very name made national headlines some three decades ago.

It was when Tipton died, in early 1989, that his secret came out: The popular musician, who had performed since the early 1930s and even released a few albums, was born a woman.

The man known as Billy Tipton, and who had lived in Spokane since 1958, had been born Dorothy Lucille Tipton.

The news was shocking in 1989. Even as late as 2008, The Spokesman-Review ran a story carrying the headline “Billy, Kitty’s strange story not over yet,” which involved a court case involving the estate left by the woman who, according to the story, “lived as bandleader Tipton’s wife in Spokane from 1962 until they separated in 1980.”

These days, of course, Tipton’s story isn’t “strange.” It’s merely sad that Tipton felt he had to hide his identity from even those closest to him.

A far more understanding attitude toward Tipton seems to be the focus of a documentary film that, having premiered last September at the Toronto International Film Festival, will open in select cities on July 16. Titled “No Ordinary Man,” the film was directed by Aisling Chin-Yee and Chase Joynt.

According to the film’s distributor Oscilloscope , “No Ordinary Man” is a “genre-defying documentary … (that) seeks to correct that misrepresentation by collaborating with trans artists. As they collectively celebrate Tipton’s story as a musician living his life according to his own terms, they paint a portrait of a trans culture icon.”

Among those included in the documentary are, according to Oscilloscope, a number of “leading voices and breakout stars n the trans community, including Marquise Vilsón , Scott Turner Schofield, Susan Stryker , C. Riley Snorton, and Thomas Page McBee, among others.”

The film will play initially in New York, Los Angeles and a few other cities at later dates.

Maybe, one day, it’ll make its way even to Spokane.