The musical Chicago is based on a play of the same name by reporter Maurine Dallas Watkins, who had been assigned to cover the 1924 trials of murderesses Beulah Annan and Belva Gaertner for the Chicago Tribune.
Annan, the model for the character of Roxie Hart, was 23 when she was accused of the murder of Harry Kalstedt. The Tribune reported that Annan played the foxtrot record "Hula Lou" over and over for two hours before calling her husband to say she killed a man who "tried to make love to her." She was found "not guilty" on May 25, 1924. Velma is based on Gaertner, who was a cabaret singer. The body of Walter Law was discovered slumped over the steering wheel of Gaertner's abandoned car on March 12, 1924. Two police officers testified that they had seen a woman getting into the car and shortly thereafter heard gunshots. A bottle of gin and an automatic pistol were found on the floor of the car. Gaertner was acquitted on June 6, 1924. The two lawyers, William Scott Stewart and W. W. O'Brien, were models for a composite character in Chicago, "Billy Flynn."
Dallas-Watkins' sensational columns documenting these trials proved so popular that she decided to write a play based on them. The show received both popular and critical acclaim and even made it to Broadway in 1926, running for 172 performances. A 1927 silent film version produced by Cecil B. DeMille and starring former Mack Sennett bathing beauty Phyllis Haver as Roxie Hart was remade as Roxie Hart, in 1942 with Ginger Rogers in the title role.
Gwen Verdon read the play and asked her husband, Bob Fosse, about the possibility of creating a musical based on it. Fosse approached Watkins multiple times to ask her permission to adapt the play as a musical, but he was rejected in each instance. Upon her death in 1969, however, Watkins instructed that the rights to Chicago be sold to Verdon and Fosse. After Watkins's death, John Kander and Fred Ebb began work on the score, modeling each number on a traditional vaudeville number or a vaudeville performer. This format made explicit the show's comparison between "justice", "show-business", and contemporary society. Ebb and Fosse penned the book of the musical, with Fosse also directing and choreographing.
