Click2Flicks - Chicago - Chicago, the Play - Chapter 6

<body link="0000ff" alink="ff0000" vlink="000000" bgcolor=000033> <table width="100%" bgcolor=000033> <tr> <td align=center valign=top> <table width=90% bgcolor=ffffff> <tr> <td align=center valign=top> <tr> <td> <div align=center><p><b><font face="arial, helvetica" size=5 color=000000><b>CHICAGO</p> <p><font size="4">CHAPTER 6 - <i>CHICAGO</i>, THE PLAY</b></font></p> </div>  <center> <table width="90%"> <tr> <td align="left" valign="top"> <div align="justify"> <p><font face="arial, helvetica" color="000000" size="3">Two months after her trial, Beulah (who was married before) divorced her husband Albert and married a young publicist named Harlbit. Within months she also divorced him.</p> <p>Four years after her murder acquittal, Beulah (using an assumed name) checked into a sanitarium. She had tuberculosis. Before the end of 1928, she was dead. Her <a target="_blank" href="http://www.maurinewatkins.com/img/ba-gravesidesketch150x250.jpg"><b>body</b></a> was returned to her family home in Owensboro, Kentucky.</p> <p>Watkins, meanwhile, had returned to Yale. She wrote her <a target="_blank" href="http://lookinside-images.amazon.com/Qffs+v35leoBsMa92RoOT0/9wq9bGjZ9bTIkCzXf2F9lAWx5A2QXhMoEIGbf49weN1uzPbC01G0/9S3IQUA1juvXum8hQHdKtIlBK4izD+NwXBM397qjIDrsTZjTXlPVBOs9tGPrF6w8qm/pC0kh5R9RIhTOGLAMPNYWcfnYhKlc/ImVz5yxT9mEzzUm4zbC"><b>play</b></a> <i>Chicago</i> for a class assignment with the famous Professor <a target="_blank" href="http://www.eoneill.com/references/54990.htm"><b>George Pierce Baker</b></a>. (<a target="_blank" href="http://www.americaslibrary.gov/assets/jb/jazz/jb_jazz_theatre_2_e.jpg"><b>Eugene O’Neill</b></a> had also been his student). Belva and Beulah became Velma and Roxie, but their crimes remained the same.</p> <p>On 30 December 1926, Watkin’s play opened on Broadway with George Abbot directing. It ran for 172 performances and helped to make Maurine a wealthy woman.</p> <p>She refused to sell the rights to <i>Chicago</i> - even to Bob Fosse who approached her in the 1950s - because she never wanted the play performed again. It is said she thought her <i>Tribune</i> articles had helped to set two killers free.</p> <p>In later years, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.maurinewatkins.com/index.htm"><b>Watkins</b></a> (be sure to check out this linked resource) often left home with a heavy veil over her face. Because of that, people thought she was eccentric. The <a target="_blank" href="http://www.maurinewatkins.com/research.html"><b>truth</b></a> is the writer had cancer which had deformed her nose and one cheek. She <a target="_blank" href="http://www.maurinewatkins.com/mdw04.html"><b>died</b></a> of lung cancer on 10 August 1969. She was 73 years old and left a fortune worth about $2.33 million.</p> <p>After her death, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.bfi.org.uk/collections/release/cabaret/bobfosse.html"><b>Bob Fosse</b></a> negotiated with Watkins’ estate and was able, with his colleagues, to buy the rights and turn the play into his famous musical. <i>Chicago</i>, the movie, is based on Fosse’s musical.</p> </div> <p align="center"><font face="arial, helvetica" size="2"><a href="chicago_ch5.htm">GO TO LAST CHAPTER</a>     <a href="chicago_ch1.htm">BACK TO FIRST CHAPTER</a>    <a href="chicago_ch7.htm">GO TO NEXT CHAPTER</a></p><br> </font> </td> </tr> </table>  </td> </tr> </table>  </td> </tr> </table> </body>