This came a long time before Renée Zellweger and Catherine Zeta-Jones (left) waltzed to glory singing its songs.

Chicago the musical, based on a play by Maurine Dallas Watkins, was performed in 1975. It was a retelling of two public trials for murder -- of Beulah Annan and Belva Gaertner -- that occurred in the city in 1924. Initially titled Chicago: A Musical Vaudeville and conceptualised as a series of vaudeville acts, it was the basis of the 2002 movie that went on to stun audiences worldwide.