Chicago is a play written by Maurine Dallas Watkins. The play, while fiction, is a satire based on two unrelated 1924 court cases involving two women, Beulah Annan and Belva Gaertner, who were both suspected and later acquitted of murder, whom Watkins had covered for the Chicago Tribune as a reporter.
Beulah Annan and Belva Gaertner, 1924
Adaptation in Pécs, Hungary, January 2024
Beulah May Annan was an American suspected murderer. Her story inspired Maurine Dallas Watkins's play Chicago in 1926. The play was adapted into a 1927 silent film, a 1975 stage musical, and a 2002 movie musical, all with that title, and a 1942 romantic comedy film, Roxie Hart, named for the character who Annan inspired.
Annan circa April 4, 1924, the day after the murder
Annan, with her attorney William Scott Stewart (left), c. April 1924