At the 1987 Tony Awards Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon present the awards for Best Choreography and Best Director. Before announcing the winners, Bob took a moment to acknowledge that his success as a choreographer was due to the inspiration and partnership he found in Gwen Verdon. A beautiful acknowledgment of the vast body of work they created together including musicals, films, and their daughter Nicole. Despite separating in 1971, they remained close collaborators until Fosse'

Liza in "Nowadays" “When you love people, I think you help out, if you can.” — Liza on joining “Chicago” Just two months after Chicago opened in June of 1975, Gwen lost her voice. Marsha Bagwell relates the story that she took Gwen to her own renowned ENT where he recommended surgery to explore the issue. During surgery, the ENT found a single piece of confetti that had landed on her vocal chord and adhered to it, causing a blister. Marsha explained that during the finale whe

Hirschfeld made the drawing while Bob Fosse's show was still out of town in Philadelphia. It was published in the  Times  on June 8, 1975 after the Broadway opening. The Hirschfeld illustration has seven Ninas. Illustration of Gwen in her Roxie costume by Mark Cote. (left) Lenora Nemetz as Velma Kelly by Hirschfeld. (right) Illustration by Mark Cote of Fosse's shows. Top left illustration shows Gwen, Jerry and Chita.

Bob and Gwen on opening night. Photos by Martha Swope. Of opening night: “The audience adored it—they even applauded when the lights first went down—and there are things, very very positive things, for everyone to adore, not least the performers. Both the girls dance their hearts out, together, singly, or leading the splendid band of gypsies who make up most of the rest of the cast. Miss Verdon’s voice, all candy innocence and yet somehow naughtily suggestive of untold viciou

"Bobby had the audacity to present us as 'poetry in motion, two moving as one.' Each of our movements was perfectly matched to the microsecond. We went all-out on 'Hot Honey Rag,' as the emcee announced: 'Okay, let's pick up the pace, let's shake the blues away, let's make the party longer, the skirts shorter and shorter, let's make the music hotter. Let's all go to town in a fast car and keep it hot!' "And we did, changing into fringed skirts that whipped around in time to t

Chita and Gwen perform the new finale: Nowadays Chita: "Bobby and Freddy had always struggled with how to end Chicago. After Roxie is acquitted in her trial and Velma in hers (offstage), they put together a vaudeville act to take advantage of their notoriety. When Velma suggests the merger, Roxie has a ready answer: 'You're forgetting one thing. We hate each other.' Velma replies, 'Yeah, but there's only one business where that doesn't matter.' True. Like I said, Bobby was so

Original finale of Chicago Chita: "Bobby [Fosse] and Freddy [Ebb] had always struggled with how to end Chicago. After Roxie is acquitted in her trial and Velma in hers (offstage), they put together a vaudeville act to take advantage of their notoriety. When Velma suggests the merger, Roxie has a ready answer: 'You're forgetting one thing. We hate each other.' Velma replies, 'Yeah, but there's only one business where that doesn't matter.' True. Like I said, Bobby was so good a

The first version of this number featured Gwen doing an Eddie Cantor--style number with the ensemble of men dressed as giant babies dancing behind her. In a conversation I had with Candy Brown, Michon Peacock, Lenora Nemetz, and Pamela Sousa, they said that Gwen hated that number (and they even felt they could see her discomfort in these pictures). What replaced it was "The Strut" which cut the ensemble down to two men dressed in suits and bowler hats dancing behind her. This

The first version of this number featured Gwen doing an Eddie Cantor--style number with the ensemble of men dressed as giant babies dancing behind her. In a conversation I had with Candy Brown, Michon Peacock, Lenora Nemetz, and Pamela Sousa, they said that Gwen hated that number (and they even felt they could see her discomfort in these pictures). What replaced it was "The Strut" which cut the ensemble down to two men dressed in suits and bowler hats dancing behind her. This

Photo by Martha Swope, 1975 “My Own Best Friend” was originally intended to be a solo for Gwen, but Gwen, being a dancer first, didn’t feel her voice had the strength to sustain the audience’s attention with a vocal solo at the end of Act 1, so she requested that it be a duet for her and Chita. When Liza stepped into the role of Roxie while Gwen was out with vocal problems, the number was turned back into a solo for Liza who had a stronger voice, and who the audience wanted t

Gwen in "Roxie" during the out-of-town try-out in Philadelphia. The costume for Gwen in the "Roxie" number changed from a tunic and belt during the out-of-town try-out in Philadelphia, to a black beaded mesh outfit on Broadway. The neon sign used for this set was designed by Tony Walton and after Chicago closed, the sign was reinstalled at Studio 54. To learn more about this, read here. Photos by Martha Swope, 1975. Photos by Martha Swope, 1975. This recording was taken duri

Jerry Orbach and Gwen Verdon Fosse knew vaudeville. Though he wasn't born until 1927, when he came of age as a performer in his teens, the people he learned from were all vaudeville veterans, and he danced old vaudeville numbers himself. Almost every song in the show is modeled on an actual vaudeville act or star. “They Both Reached for the Gun” recalls vaudeville's requisite ventriloquist specialty acts, while pointing out how celebrities are just puppets that can be made to

Lenora Nemetz was the original standby for Gwen and Chita in Chicago. Below she tells the story of her audition, and when she made her Roxie debut during the out-of-town try-out in Philadelphia. “My friend Norman in Pittsburgh sent my picture to Bob Fosse, and he wrote back and told me to come in for an audition. Do you know what happened? I got on the wrong plane. I actually got on a place to Chicago. Then I got off and got a place to New York. Well, I auditioned for Bob and

Gwen Verdon sings "Funny Honey" Photo by Martha Swope, 1975. Fosse knew vaudeville. Though he wasn't born until 1927, when he came of age as a performer in his teens, the people he learned from were all vaudeville veterans, and he danced old vaudeville numbers himself. Almost every song in the show is modeled on an actual vaudeville act or star. “Funny Honey” starts out being an homage to torch song queen Helen Morgan's song “Bill” from Show Boat, a song about an ordinary man

Photo by Martha Swope, 1975. NYPL Interview by Michael Kantor for PBS, 2003 Jerry Orbach: I played Billy Flynn, the lawyer, and I gave him a certain kind of world-weary insouciance. He was very, very tough, very cold, calculating, but could be very charming. Michael Kantor: How was Chicago untraditional, would you say? You know, you were in a bunch, you saw so many traditional musicals. Wasn't there a sort of almost cynical view that Fosse brought to it? Jerry Orbach: Chicag

"I always thought that I could have made a good criminal defense lawyer. (I'm addicted to watching crime shows on TV.) Velma in Chicago was just the type of person I would have wanted to have as a client. People often asked me if I ever wanted to play Roxie, her rival in the Cook County jail. The short answer is ‘no.' Roxie's cute and conniving, and though I got the chance to play her a couple of times, she will always belong to Gwen. Velma is my kind of girl because she's a

During the number "Roxie" during the out of town try out in Philadelphia before her costume changed. Photo by Martha Swope, 1975 Gwen Verdon was 50 when she starred in Chicago as Roxie Hart. She had wanted to bring the project to life with Fosse for years. In the 1960s they tried to obtain the rights to perform Chicago from Maurine Watkins , but couldn't get permission until after she passed away in 1969. When rehearsals began in 1974 for Chicago , t he progress was stalled

Chris Chadman, Ron Schwinn, Gwen Verdon, Gene Foote, Dick Korthaze rehearse onstage following a musicians’ strike which shut down nine Broadway musicals for 25 days in 1975. Rehearsals began October 26, 1974 at Broadway Arts. After the first table read, Fosse was admitted to the hospital for chest pains. His doctors said he was going to have a heart attack. Fosse's doctors called Broadway Arts to inform Gwen. Gwen was found in a studio alone with Chita, knitting needles in ha

Bob Fosse in the house of the 46th Street Theatre during rehearsals of Chicago, 1975. From Chita Rivera's memoir : "On the first days of a rehearsal for a new Broadway musical, all companies are brimming with hope and nervous energy. The ones for Chicago, in the autumn of 1974, felt different. There was the excitement of a potential hit in the making, and there was loads of laughter as we read through the script written by Freddy. He gave it warmth and wit; Bobby gave it sat