27.07.1896 - 10.08.1969 (73 years)
Maurine Dallas Watkins (July 27, 1896? – August 10, 1969) was an American playwright and screenwriter. For a brief time she worked as a journalist covering the courthouse beat for the Chicago Tribune. This experience gave her the material for her most famous piece of work, which was eventually adapted into the Broadway musical Chicago. In the 1920s Watkins wrote the stage play, Chicago (1926), about women accused of murder, the press, celebrity criminals, and the corruption of justice. Her play had a successful run on Broadway and international tour, during the roaring twenties — the play was then adapted in the 1920s and 1940s for film. After Watkins death in 1969, Chicago was turned into in the successful Broadway musical. Watkins was born in Kentucky and grew up in Indiana. She graduated with honors from Butler University and headed to Radcliffe, where she received training as a dramatist. She left Radcliffe and was in advertising in Chicago in the early 1920s. She then landed a job as a reporter before returning to university at what became Yale Drama School and play-writing success. Watkins went on to write screenplays in Hollywood, eventually retiring to Florida.