Bob fosse’s Long wait for ‘Chicago’

Bob Fosse wanted to turn Maurine Dallas Watkins’ 1926 play, ‘Chicago,’ into a musical for years. But the journalist adn playwright wouldn’t allow it. “Maurine Dallas Watkins had become very religious and had withdrawn the rights from the market,” composer John Kander said in an interview with ABC. fosse, a Broadway legend, had to wait for Watkins to pass away – she died in 1969 – and for her heirs to decide to sell the rights. The director and choreographer then teamed up with John Kander and Fred Ebb (known for ‘Cabaret’ and ‘New York,New York’) and finally released the musical in New York in June 1975,starring Chita Rivera and Gwen Verdon.

Why didn’t Watkins wont to sell the rights? According to a family member,she believed her work had helped a murderer get acquitted,and that bothered her. Watkins worked as a reporter in the 1920s for the Chicago Tribune. She covered the trials of Belva Belgian and Beulah Sheriff. Both women were judged – and found not guilty – of murdering thier lovers.The press labeled them “Jazz Murderesses,” and their trials became a huge media event in a Chicago filled with crime, corruption, and sensational journalism. Newspapers turned the trials into a spectacle, and Watkins herself described Beulah as “beauty of the cell block” and Belva as “the most elegant in the row of murderers.” This coverage likely influenced their acquittals.

The intense media attention was full of cynicism and focused more on sensationalism than on finding the truth and justice.