Beulah Annan
Overview
Beulah May Annan was a suspected American murderess.

She is one of the subjects of Maurine Dallas Watkins
Maurine Dallas Watkins
Maurine Dallas Watkins was an American journalist and playwright.She was born in Louisville, Kentucky, and attended Crawfordsville High School, followed by five colleges...

's play Chicago
Chicago (play)
Chicago is a 1926 play written by Maurine Dallas Watkins. It was based on two unrelated 1924 cases of two women, Beulah Annan and Belva Gaertner, who were both suspected and later acquitted for murder, that Watkins had covered for the Chicago Tribune as a reporter...

in 1924. The play has been adapted into a 1927 silent film
Chicago (1927 film)
Chicago is a 1927 comedy-drama silent film produced by Cecil B. DeMille and directed by Frank Urson.-Plot:Drawn from the play of the same name by Maurine Dallas Watkins which was in turn based on the true story of Beulah Annan, fictionalized as Roxie Hart , and her spectacular murder of her boyfriend...

, 1975 stage musical
Chicago (musical)
Chicago is a musical set in Prohibition-era Chicago. The music is by John Kander with lyrics by Fred Ebb and a book by Ebb and Bob Fosse. The story is a satire on corruption in the administration of criminal justice and the concept of the "celebrity criminal"...

, and 2002 movie musical
Chicago (2002 film)
Chicago is a 2002 musical film adapted from the satirical stage musical of the same name, exploring the themes of celebrity, scandal, and corruption in Jazz-age Chicago....

 (which won the Academy Award for Best Picture
Academy Award for Best Picture
The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to artists working in the motion picture industry. The Best Picture category is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible not only...

), all with that title, and a 1942 romantic comedy film, Roxie Hart
Roxie Hart (film)
Roxie Hart is a 1942 film directed by William A. Wellman and starring Ginger Rogers, Adolphe Menjou, George Montgomery, Nigel Bruce, Phil Silvers, William Frawley, and Spring Byington....

, named for the character Annan inspired.
She was born Beulah May Sheriff in Owensboro, Kentucky
Owensboro, Kentucky
Owensboro is the fourth largest city by population in the U.S. state of Kentucky. It is the county seat of Daviess County. It is located on U.S. Route 60 about southeast of Evansville, Indiana, and is the principal city of the Owensboro, Kentucky, Metropolitan Statistical Area. The city's...

, to John Sheriff and Mary Neel. While living in Kentucky, she married her first husband, Perry Stephens, a newspaper linotype operator.
 
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