Stage and Screen Adaptations
Gaertner attended the 1927 opening of Watkins's play Chicago in Chicago, Illinois. The play has since been adapted into a 1927 silent film, 1975 stage musical, and 2002 movie musical (which won the Academy Award for Best Picture), all by that name, as well as the 1942 romantic comedy film Roxie Hart.
Velma Kelly, the 1975 musical character inspired by her, won Bebe Neuwirth the Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical for its acclaimed 1996 revival; it also won Catherine Zeta-Jones the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the 2002 film based on it. The character was known as simply "Velma" in the 1927 film and as "Velma Wall" in the 1942 film; both were lesser characters in comparison to Velma Kelly as well as Roxie Hart, the Beulah Annan-inspired character who appeared in all versions of Chicago.
Read more about this topic: Belva Gaertner
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