Overview

In 1924, the murder trials of Beulah Annan and Belva Gaertner shocked the world, providing the real-life inspiration for Maurine Watkins’s unforgettable characters, Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly. Now, a century later, this reissue of Watkins’s play offers a fresh look at the origins of the story that has since become a household name. From the silent film Chicago produced by Cecil B. DeMille in 1927 to the 1942 film Roxie Hart starring Ginger Rogers and the Broadway sensation created by Bob Fosse, Fred Ebb, and John Kander, this play has continuously evolved. It even inspired the 2002 Oscar-winning film Chicago starring RenÉe Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Richard Gere. But until recently, as editor Thomas H. Pauly writes in the book’s introduction, the real-life roots of the story were obscured. While researching for a book on crime-as-entertainment during the 1920s, Pauly came across Maurine Watkins’s play, which was then out of print. After noticing similarities between the play and a series of articles Watkins penned for the Chicago Tribune prior to the creation of her play, Pauly knew he had stumbled upon a revelation: Watkins’s play was based on real people. His republication of the play, alongside substantial background material and a reprinting of Watkins’s news articles, has become an indispensable starting point for all subsequent interest in Watkins and Chicago, whose subject remains as topical as ever. This special edition includes a new foreword by Charles H. Cosgrove, author of They Both Reached for the Gun: Beulah Annan, Maurine Watkins, and the Trial That Became Chicago. Cosgrove’s extensive research into the real-life cases provides deeper insight into the world that Watkins portrayed with such satirical brilliance. Additionally, the original editor, Thomas H. Pauly, has contributed a new preface, further enhancing understanding of the play and its inspiration, the thrilling true-crime story that captivated a nation and birthed a cultural phenomenon.

Full Product Details

9780809339648

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Reviews

"""That Maurine Watkins and her comedy should be so forgotten today [compared to the story's various adaptations] is almost amazing... Watkins's play offers a bracing reminder that lurid crimes were as aggressively commercialized seventy years ago as they are today.""--Thomas H. Pauly, from the book's introduction"

Author Information

Maurine A. Watkins was a Chicago Tribune reporter whose play was derived from her bright, humorous coverage of the murder trials of two women remarkably like Roxie.Thomas H. Pauly is the author of a critical study of Elia Kazan, a biography of Zane Grey, and a book on American sport before World War I.

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