Maurine Dallas Watkins
| Maurine Dallas Watkins | |
|---|---|
| Born |
July 27, 1896 Louisville, Kentucky, U.S. |
| Died | August 10, 1969 (aged 73) |
| Occupation | Journalist, playwright |
Maurine Dallas Watkins (July 27, 1896 – August 10, 1969) was an American journalist and playwright. In the 1920s she wrote the play, Chicago (1926). After her death, it was adapted by Bob Fosse and others as a successful musical for stage, running from 1975 to 1977 in New York, and a 2002 film version.
Watkins was born in Louisville, Kentucky, and attended Crawfordsville High School in Indiana. She attended a total of five colleges (including Hamilton College (Kentucky), Transylvania University, Butler College (Indianapolis, IN), and Radcliffe College). While at Butler, Watkins joined the Gamma chapter of Kappa Alpha Theta Women's Fraternity and was initiated in 1919.
That year she graduated first in her class from Butler, and moved to Radcliffe in Massachusetts to pursue graduate studies in Greek. Her plans changed after she applied and was accepted into English Professor George Pierce Baker's playwriting workshop at Harvard University. Baker encouraged writing students to seek experience in the larger world and may have recommended newspaper reporting. Watkins moved to Chicago and in early 1924 landed a job as a reporter with the Chicago Tribune.
For the Tribune, where Watkins worked for seven months, she covered the murders and the subsequent trials of Belva Gaertner, a twice-divorced cabaret singer, and Beulah Sheriff Annan. Watkins often used acerbically amusing reportage, and focused on the farcical, cynical, and sensational aspects of the two cases, the press and public interest, and the legal proceedings. She highlighted two attractive "jazz babies" claiming to be corrupted by men and liquor. She characterized Beulah as "beauty of the cell block" and Belva as "most stylish of Murderess Row." Both women, after months of press coverage in Chicago's seven daily papers, were found not guilty at trial. Watkins believed they were guilty.
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