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Velma Kelly is one of the main characters in the successful 1975 Broadway musical Chicago. Kelly is based on the character "Velma", who first appeared in the 1926 play, also called Chicago , who was in-turn inspired by the life of Belva Gaertner .
In 1977, Bob Fosse cast her in the lead role of Velma Kelly in the first national tour of the musical Chicago. She went on to appear in productions of Dancin' , Jerry's Girls , and Sweet Charity in the 1980s.
The opening night cast starred Chita Rivera as Velma Kelly, Gwen Verdon as Roxie Hart, Jerry Orbach as Billy Flynn, and Barney Martin as Amos Hart. Velma Kelly had been a comparatively minor character in all versions of Chicago prior to the musical rendering. The role was fleshed out to balance Rivera's role opposite Verdon's Roxie Hart.
Belva Eleanora Gaertner (née Boosinger; September 14, 1884 – May 14, 1965) was an American woman who was acquitted of murder in a 1924 trial.She inspired the character of Velma in the 1926 play Chicago created by Maurine Dallas Watkins; Watkins reported on the trial for the Chicago Tribune.
In 1924, housewife Roxie Hart watches vaudeville star Velma Kelly perform ("Overture/All That Jazz") at The Onyx, a Chicago nightclub.Seeking stardom, Roxie begins an affair with furniture salesman Fred Casely, who claims to know the manager.
Chicago is a play written by Maurine Dallas Watkins.The play, while fiction, is a satire based on two unrelated 1924 court cases involving two women, Beulah Annan (the inspiration for Roxie Hart) and Belva Gaertner (the inspiration for Velma Kelly), who were both suspected and later acquitted of murder, whom Watkins had covered for the Chicago Tribune as a reporter.
Amra-Faye Wright (born 22 August 1960) is a South African stage actress best known for portraying Velma Kelly in the musical Chicago, both on Broadway and in international tours. In 2010, she became the first actress to have performed the role both in English and in Japanese. [1]
In 1975, Rivera was nominated for a Tony Award [3] starring as Velma Kelly opposite Gwen Verdon in the original cast of the musical Chicago, [12] directed by Bob Fosse. In addition to her ballet instructors, Rivera cited Leonard Bernstein and Verdon, with whom she starred in Chicago, as influential to her success. [18]