Songfacts®:

• With music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb, "Roxie" is another track from the musical vaudeville Chicago. In the film version, Roxie is played by Renée Zelwegger, who performs this song accompanied by a dancing male chorus. In the original Broadway production, Roxie was played by Gwen Verdon. Roxie Hart is actually based fairly closely on a real person, Beulah Annan (see the Songfacts for "Hula Lou"). Chicago started life as a play by Chicago Tribune reporter Maurine Watkins. In 1924, Annan stood trial for the murder of her lover, Harry Kalstedt.
  
  In spite of shooting Kalstedt in the back then sitting and watching him die, she was acquitted of murder, and promptly left him. After marrying and divorcing her third husband, she died from tuberculosis less than four years after her acquittal. >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Alexander Baron - London, England