LONDON - Stage and screen actress Brooke Shields will take on the role of murderous flapper Roxie Hart in the London version of the musical "Chicago", beginning April 26.
Shields said Thursday she only had a handful of days to learn the lines of Roxie's leading role, her debut production in London's West End theater district.
"Much to my embarrassment, I haven't seen the film and I haven't seen it on Broadway," said the US star, according to Britain's Press Assocation newswire.
"I've only got nine days to learn the whole show. That's borderline criminal, but I have to go back to the States for promotional work."
In a 2002 film version of the musical, actress Renee Zellweger played Roxie, a discontented housewife who turns into a fame-seeking ambitious murderer and rival of Velma, played in the movie by Catherine Zeta Jones.
Shields gained fame as a child with her first film roles, as a prostitute in Louis Malles's "Pretty Baby", then as an adolescent discovering romance on a deserted island in the 1981 "The Blue Lagoon".
The actress, who was briefly married to tennis star Andre Agassi and is remarried and the mother of a one-year-old girl, turns 40 during her nine-week run as Roxie at London's Adelphia Theatre.
04/14/2005 15:38 GMT