Charlie Chan

Charlie Chan is a fictional Chinese-Hawaiian detective created by Earl Derr Biggers. He is the hero of a number of books and dozens of movies. At first a sergeant (but later promoted) in the Honolulu Police Department, he and his wife have eleven children and live in a house on Punchbowl Hill. He is a large man but moves gracefully.

Charlie Chan appeared in six novels by Earl Derr Biggers:

• The House Without a Key (1925)
• The Chinese Parrot (1926)
• Behind That Curtain (1928)
• The Black Camel (1929)
• Charlie Chan Carries On (1930)
• Keeper of the Keys (1932)

The first three novels were each adapted to film during the 1920s, by different studios, but the best-known Charlie Chan movies are those of the long-running series that began in 1931 with Charlie Chan Carries On, starring Warner Oland. Oland starred in a further fifteen movies; the mantle then passed to Sidney Toler , who starred in eleven Charlie Chan movies before the series was halted by America's entry into World War II. The series was revived by Monogram in 1944, with another eleven movies starring Toler and then five starring Roland Winters . The Monogram films are generally considered to be of poorer quality than the films of the 1930s.

The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan, an animated series made in the 1970s by Hanna-Barbera Productions and starring Keye Luke, was noteworthy only because it was the only occasion on which Charlie Chan has been played by an actor of Chinese descent. (Two Charlie Chan films made in the 1920s had starred Japanese actors; and several of the Chan sons had been played by Chinese-American actors in the 1930s movies, including Keye Luke himself as the eldest son and Benson Fong as son #3.)

The career of Chang Apana, a real-life detective with the HPD, was one of the inspirations upon Biggers to create the Chan character.