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"I am quite sure that I never intended to travel the
road of the mystery writer," wrote Earl Derr Biggers '07 for his twenty-fifth class reunion report. "Nor did I deliberately
choose to have in the seat at my side, his life forever entangled with mine, a bland and moon-faced Chinese. Yet here I am,
and with me Charlie Chan. Thank heaven he is amiable, philosophical--a good companion. For I know now that he and I must travel
the rest of the journey together." Described by friends as "short, round, and dark" and
by his wife as "a Middle West product with a Boston complex," Biggers loved food, travel, and golf. A skilled raconteur with
a fine sense of humor, he finished a second novel, "Love Insurance," in New York, then turned it into a successful play, "See-Saw."
But further theatrical collaboration, while enhancing his reputation, exhausted him physically, emotionally, and creatively.
On an extended family vacation, he reached Hawaii in 1920, sunned on the beach at Waikiki, plotted the perfect murder...and
saved it for the right hero. "I had seen movies depicting and read stories about Chinatown and wicked Chinese villains," he
explained years later, "and it struck me that a Chinese hero, trustworthy, benevolent, and philosophical, would come nearer
to presenting a correct portrayal of the race." Biggers, a master of plot, characterization, humor,
and timing, recognized the public's love of Chan. In 1925 he moved to Pasadena, where he wrote "The Chinese Parrot," in which
the Chinese-Hawaiian Chan's cultural complexity emerges further. While working in disguise, Chan speaks pidgin English but
draws the line at one word: "[B]y the bones of my honorable ancestors, I will not say 'velly.'" The Post paid $25,000
to serialize the third Chan book, "Behind That Curtain," and Biggers sold the story to Fox for "a very gratifying sum." Chan's
world-wide popularity pleased Biggers but also worried him: "I don't want to find myself in a position where the public won't
accept anything but a Chan story from me," he lamented. Promising Bobbs-Merrill a fourth Chan, he returned to Hawaii for inspiration
and met with Chinese-Hawaiian police detectives, among them Chang Apana, whom he had read about years earlier: a man with
dark, piercing eyes who worked for the Honolulu police, lived on Punchbowl Hill, and had many children--like Chan. Apana,
however, was small and wiry and wielded a ferocious bullwhip, and there is no indication that he quoted aphorisms. Biggers
always asserted that he had not based Chan on any real person, but he sent Apana an autographed copy of "The Black Camel."
Hollywood and television have kept Chan going despite
protests about caricatured aspects of the films. Chinese Americans such as Amy Tan, David Henry Hwang, and Gish Jen '77 now
create their own literature for the public, yet Chan still looms in the background. Biggers realized the stature of his fictional
hero when, near the end, he asked Bobbs-Merrill to make Chan's name on the cover "at least as large as mine. After all, he's
the big boy."
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