Billy Tipton was a jazz pianist who performed to moderate success in the Spokane, Washington area in the late 1940s through the 60s. His small group, The Billy Tipton Trio, played regular gigs for years at many popular jazz venues in the Pacific Northwest. He recorded and released two albums of jazz standards for independent Tops Records, but shunned further offers in favor of continuing his live appearances.

Billy had serious relationships with five women. These relationships lasted for years with several of the women identifying themselves as”Mrs. Tipton,” although he only eventually married former stripper Kitty Kelly. Billy had informed Kitty, as he did his other intimate companions, that he had been involved in a horrific auto accident, leaving him with permanent ribcage damage, disfigured genitals and rendering him sterile. He was forced to wear a tight, binding cloth around his torso to ease his pain and enable him to function.

Billy and Kitty adopted three sons and Billy loved the role of “family man/father”. He was an active PTA member and often accompanied his boys on Boy Scout activities. As the children came into their teens, their wild behavior was the cause of many arguments between Kitty and Billy. Billy left the house, opting to move into a trailer home with his boys. As the years went on, the boys left Billy on his own. With his music career long in his past, Billy had no income and lived in poverty.

In the late 1980s, Billy fell seriously ill from a hemorrhaging peptic ulcer. He refused treatment and died in 1989 at the age of 74. Kitty and the children contacted Ball & Dodd Funeral Home to make Billy’s final arrangements. While Billy’s body was being prepared for burial, the funeral director informed the family of a startling discovery. Billy was a woman.

Billy was born Dorothy Lucille Tipton in Oklahoma in 1914 and had lived his life as a man for 54 years. Each of his female companions were given and convinced by the same “accident” story. Billy insisted to making love in the dark and preferred to do the touching rather than being touched. In the darkness, he was able to conceal a prosthetic penis he wore attached to an athletic supporter. A shocked Kitty tried to cover-up the truth, but son William went public and made many talk show appearances and happily gave interviews to both tabloids and more reputable papers.

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Jack Cassidy achieved early fame as musical performer on Broadway for over twenty years. He won the Best Featured Actor Tony Award in 1963 for his role in She Loves Me, a musical reworking of the play Parfumerie  (which, itself, made been remade several times as Shop Around the Corner  and, most recently, You’ve Got Mail). He also appeared in dozens of guest roles in episodic television – displaying his skills in both comedy and drama – and a handful of theatrical films. He earned two Emmy nominations. He was featured in a memorable role on the Mary Tyler Moore show as Hal Baxter, the equally pompous brother of news anchor Ted Baxter (played by the late Ted Knight).

He experienced a small resurgence in popularity in the early 1970s, however not necessarily for his own talents. Jack’s son, David, was the hottest thing on television, playing heartthrob Keith Partridge on the hit series The Partridge Family. Jack’s jealousy of David’s success increased at the same rate of his son’s popularity. It didn’t help matters that Jack’s wife (and David’s step-mother), Oscar-winning actress Shirley Jones, was also featured on the show and was enjoying comparable glory. From Jack’s perspective, they were being rewarded with the great success that had eluded him and that he rightfully deserved. He was extremely critical of David’s and Shirley’s performances. He belittled the show itself, pointing out that he was a true actor and what they were doing could not compare.

In 1974, The Partridge Family’s run came to an end and, at the same time, Jack’s alcohol consumption increased. David observed his father’s behavior had become erratic and unpredictable. Jack’s neighbors noticed similar action, when one afternoon Jack was spotted watering his front lawn in the nude. Another incident, a short time later, had Jack proclaiming himself to be Christ. He was admitted to a psychiatric facility. His marriage to Shirley was essentially over.

In 1976, newly-single Jack moved into an apartment in West Hollywood. In the early morning of December 12, 1976,  Jack passed out, possibly from excessive drinking, while holding a lit cigarette. The couch caught fire and it quickly spread through the apartment. Jack’s body was found on the floor, as though he had been crawling toward the sliding glass doors to safety. He was so badly burned that he was identified by dental records and a pinkie ring that he was never without. Jack was 49.

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In 1949, Agnes Morra, a 15-year-old heroin addict, gave birth to a boy named Michael. Michael was given formula laced with an opiate derivative because he had become addicted to heroin in utero. Michael’s father, a career gangster, was deported to Italy. Agnes soon developed a relationship with a drug-addicted former boxer, who regularly beat her and young Michael. The boxer eventually murdered Michael’s mother.

For self-prescribed therapy, Michael began to perform as a stand-up comic under the stage name “Rockets Redglare”. He became a fixture in the small clubs of Manhattan’s East Village. He also spent a lot of time in drug rehab, hoping to kick his addiction.

Rockets worked as a club bouncer, as a roadie for a band called the Hassles (featuring a young Billy Joel), and acted as a bodyguard and drug supplier for Sex Pistols’ bassist Sid Vicious and artist-musician Jean Michel Basquiat. Rockets made a drug delivery to Sid Vicious at the Chelsea Hotel the night Vicious’ girlfriend Nancy Spungen was murdered. In the book, Pretty Vacant: A History of Punk, it is speculated that Rockets was her killer.

Rockets made his acting debut in director Jim Jarmusch’s 1984 film Stranger Than Paradise. That role led to more  small, quirky roles as seedy characters in films like Desperately Seeking Susan, After Hours and Down By Law. He played the hotel clerk who welcomed a frightened Tom Hanks to his questionable accommodations in Big. He taunted Eric Bogosian’s character as a deranged and angry caller in Talk Radio.

In 2001, while battling various addictions, Rockets Redglare died from a combination of kidney failure, liver failure, cirrhosis and hepatitis C. He admitted, “Anything I ever liked…I always did to excess”. Rockets was 52.

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“These people, dressed as they are, come from all over the United States to make deals here in the Marketplace of America. Let’s! Make! A Deal!” – Jay Stewart

Jay Stewart broke into show business as a sax player, but landed a few announcing jobs after his graduation from college. Jay became the announcer on the fledgling Let’s Make A Deal one year after its premiere. Let’s Make a Deal  host Monty Hall called Jay “the best second banana you ever found in your life.” In addition to annoucing, Jay carried prize boxes and appeared on stage in various costumes when “zonk” prizes were awarded.

When the original version of Let’s Make a Deal  left the air in 1977,  Jay announced for other game shows like Sale of the Century, Joker’s Wild  and Tic-Tac-Dough until 1981, when the suicide of Jay’s daughter disrupted his career.

Jay returned to the airwaves in 1983, announcing on Pat Robertson’s 700 Club that he had found religion and it was helping him to deal with his daughter’s death. However, Jay never fully overcame her death and, coupled with chronic back pain from the years of heavy lifting on Let’s Make A Deal, he turned increasingly to alcohol. After a brief stint as an agent for other TV announcers, Jay committed suicide, shooting himself at his home in September 1989 just after his 71st birthday.

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