| By the 1920s, Chicago was America’s "second city." Prohibition was in effect but had not stopped people from drinking alcoholic beverages. What had changed was its method of production and sale. In Chicago, bootlegging flourished and was largely run by organized crime.
Trial lawyers were famous Chicago celebrities. So were their clients, largely due to extensive newspaper publicity. In the days before television, murder trials often provided entertainment for the local populace.
The Chicago Tribune hired a young reporter, Maurine Dallas Watkins, to cover the courts from “a feminine perspective.” Watkins, a budding playwright studying at Yale, had decided to take a break from college so she could get some real-world experience. Her journalist duties at the Tribune gave her just the experience she needed - and more.
Watkins turned two of the cases she reported - murders committed by two beautiful young women - into a play when she resumed her studies at Yale. Her classroom assignment still survives as the basis of Bob Fosse’s musical Chicago. And the storyline of her play, including some of its impossible-but-true parts, is the basis for Chicago, the movie.
In this story behind the movie, meet the real killers: “Roxie Hart” (played by Catherine Zeta-Jones) and “Velma Kelley” (played by Renée Zellweger). Read some of the news coverage, from the 1920s, which reported their alleged deeds.
Step back in time to see what life was like in Chicago during the years of Prohibition. Meet Maurine Dallas Watkins and discover why she fought so hard to prevent her play from becoming a film or musical.
| 