Oh No! Could it be his name was actually “Charles” and not “Charlie” Chan?

Happy 140th Birthday wishes to Earl Derr Biggers this month, August 26, 1884.

OK, take a deep breath now and let it out slowly. If you are a serious Charlie Chan fan your initial reaction might be to pommel me with innuendos, barbs, insults and possibly a face slap or two. But wait! If only a watcher of the 40+ Chan films you are still safe here. This is not for you. However, if you are among us literary types who’ve read, and re-read, the six original novels; well, brace yourself!

Yes, the movies are definitive. He is incontrovertibly one Detective Charlie Chan. Momma and Poppa Chan of film standing in their silk garments, looked lovingly down upon their newborn son in his bassinet and speaking in Cantonese announced “We shall name him Charlie.” No doubt about it. But for those of us bookworms drawn to the original Chan novels, as the saying goes:

WARNING: Some viewers may find the following editorial disturbing!

Here are two passages (I truly hesitate to point out) from the original Chan novels:

“And this, John Quincy,” went on Miss Minerva, “is Mr. Charles Chan, of the Honolulu detective force.”

Ms. Minerva Winterslip, The House Without a Key, 1925, Chapter 8, “Steamer Day”

“Thank you for coming.” The deputy district attorney rose and smiled at the girl in a kindly fashion. “I am Miss Morrow, and this is Mr. Charles Chan. And Mr. Barry Kirk.”

Deputy DA Morrow, Behind That Curtain, 1928, Chapter 6, “The Guest Detective.”

OK. So why, in the very first novel, Ms. Minerva Winterslip introduces Charlie as Mr. Charles Chan is worth pondering? Surely Author Earl Derr Biggers had something to do with it. I mean–unless it was a typo or something? But then we go on to find a second time, in the third novel, another gal Asst DA Morrow again introduces Charlie as Mr. Charles Chan. The unavoidably conclusion: the author purposely wrote those words.

But as Charlie often said, “Wait! Touch nothing!” Is it possible we may be able to rationally explain this away, allowing me to save face and not lose any subscribers?

In one of the more recent successful publications surrounding the detective, Professor Yunte Huang’s book, CHARLIE CHAN The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous with American History (2010), Professor Huang give us a hint as to where Ohio Author Earl Derr Biggers may have originated the detective’s name:

“… But at the time Biggers was growing up, there actually was a Chinese man named Charlie Chan living in Akron. Listed as thirty-six years old in the 1900 census, Chan was coincidentally, also born around 1864 in Canton, China. He immigrated to the United States as a teen and opened a laundry in Akron (ohio) in the late 1890s.

***

If Biggers hopped aboard the Pittsburg, Akron & Western Railroad, he could get to the big city in two hours, and he would not have missed seeing Charlie Chan’s laundry sign.”

Yunte Huang, Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous with American History, 201o, Chapter 10, “The Other Canton.”

So here we have a dilemma. Did Professor Huang hit the proverbial ‘nail head’ in asserting Earl Derr Biggers borrowed the name from a nearby local Ohio businessman and Chinese immigrant? And if so, what is with our detective being addressed as Mr. Charles Chan…not once, but twice?

Now, I come to the part where we theorize (essentially make up stuff to suit our needs: but with forethought!) If Prof. Huang was correct, and his logic is certainly arguable, then Earl Derr Biggers did concoct his detective’s name from the Charlie Chan Laundry near his home. And perhaps, when first introducing him in The House Without a Key, Chapter VII – Enter Charlie Chan, Biggers wanted to give his detective a little prestige, thumbing his nose at what Biggers’ often observed to be Bostonian high-hatted, snobbishness.

Biggers attended Harvard graduating in 1905. However, not coming from “old money” (like many of his fellow Harvard Alumni) he was there by the generosity of his successful Uncle James Biggers. So it’s doubtful Earl was invited to hang with the gang at Harvard, or had the resources to do so during his tenure. Also, he was fired from his position on The Boston Globe Newspaper as a theater critic at the beginning of this career.

So, when presented through the voices of Ms. Minerva and Asst. DA Morris as Mr. Charles Chan, Biggers could have been either giving Charlie (his own creation) a social boost, or was simply jeering Bostonian aristocracy he was never let part of. His resentment of the Bostonian elite was often reflected in his writing.

I think it safe to conclude that Charlie’s creator, Ohio Author Earl Derr Biggers, eventually came to accept and recognize his sleuth as Detective Charlie Chan, not Charles. And just maybe until after the third novel Behind That Curtain, he had not yet made his mind up on that point. Throughout the rest of his writing Charlie remained Charlie Chan.

Inside of all reviews or interviews I’ve read with Biggers (and there were many) he not once referred to his detective as Charles. And even if he’d once been teetering on it, as his poppa Earl Derr Biggers decided he was forever more to be Detective Charlie Chan of the Honolulu Police.

P.S What’s in a name anyway, The Name Game (Shirley Ellis, 1964), or this more risqué version (pictured at top) from the tv show American Horror Story, The Name Game.

“There was once a man who pinched the baby while rocking the cradle. His work was not regarded a very large success”

Behind That Curtain, 1928, Chapter 14