Serving generous portions of history and mystery
from our monthly menu
Volume 1, Issue 2: February 1, 2003
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Le Cafe Singe Bleu Serving generous portions of history and mystery from our monthly menu Volume 1, Issue 2: February 1, 2003 |
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Earl Derr Biggers by Dot Emm and Edogawa Ranpo
 Back cover of Keeper of the Keys Dell Books, 1932 Earl Derr Biggers was born in Warren, Ohio on August 26, 1884, to Robert J. Biggers and Emma E. Derr Biggers. He died of a heart attack in Pasadena, California on April 5, 1933, just a few months short of his forty-ninth birthday. He left behind a wife, Eleanor, and a son, Bob. Biggers had dedicated The House Without A Key to his parents and Behind That Curtain to the only critic he loved - his wife. To Bob he dedicated Keeper of the Keys. Biggers attended Harvard University. While still in college, and a member of the 'Advocate' and the 'Lampoon,' he also sold short stories to popular magazines. He graduated in 1907 at the age of 23. Biggers worked very briefly at the Cleveland Plain Dealer and at the publishing firm of Bobbs-Merrill before settling in as a drama critic for the Boston Traveller. He continued to contribute to magazines and attempted plays. His first play If You're Only Human, was produced in 1912, but was not successful. His first success was Seven Keys to Baldpate, a mystery and adventure story published in 1913. It was turned into a hit play by George M. Cohan shortly thereafter. In 1914, he finished a second novel, ''Love Insurance,'' which became the successful play, ''See-Saw.'' For the next twelve years Biggers continued to write fiction and plays. In 1919, Biggers took a vacation to Hawaii. Five years later, in 1924, he was contemplating a mystery set in tropical Honolulu. Leafing through a stack of Honolulu newspapers to refresh his memory, the writer came across a small story about Chinese detective Chang Apana and an opium arrest. Immediately, Biggers hit on the idea of a good-guy Chinese character for his mystery. "Sinister and wicked Chinese were old stuff in mystery stories, but an amiable Chinese acting on the side of law and order had never been used up to that time," he told an interviewer in 1931. This first Charlie Chan story,The House Without A Key was published in book form in 1925, after having been serialized in the Saturday Evening Post from January 24 to March 25, 1925. In 1925, Biggers and family moved to Pasadena, where he continued to write Charlie Chan novels. The 'Saturday Evening Post' paid $25,000 to serialize the third Chan book, Behind That Curtain, and Biggers sold the film rights to Fox for 'a very gratifying sum.' Altogether Biggers wrote six full-length novels with Chan as the chief character. All of the stories were serialized in 'The Saturday Evening Post' before appearing in book form. Many of them were translated into foreign languages. All of them, except for The Keeper of the Keys were turned into movies before Biggers' death. Earl Derr Biggers returned to Hawaii in 1932, when he decided to observe the filming of the movie The Black Camel, starring Warner Oland and with Bela Lugosi as Tarneverro. He presented Chang Apana with an autographed copy of the book. Shortly before Bigger's death Charlie Chan became a radio character, and a few months after his death in 1933, Charlie Chan made his bow on the legitimate stage with Keeper of the Keys. Described by his friends as ''short, round and dark'' and by his wife (Eleanor Biggers, nee Ladd) as ''a Middle West product with a Boston complex,'' Earl Derr Biggers loved food, travel and golf. He also loved writing, and the black camel knelt at his gate all too soon. Publication History [IN PROGRESS]:
Brief Biggers biography from Charlie Chan Carries On , June 1945 edition A Charlie Chan Chronology from the external Charlie Chan Family website Earl Derr Biggers: Brief Life of a Popular Author: 1884-1933, by Barbara Gregorich, 'Harvard Magazine', March-April 2000 |
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