Charlie Chan The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous With American History (Hardcover)

From the Publisher: This is the first biography of the cinematic hero Charlie Chan, whose character was inspired by the real-life story of Chang Apana, a bullwhip-wielding, five-foot-tall Chinese immigrant detective whose raids on opium dens and gambling parlors made him into a legend. Emerging against the backdrop of racially riven early-twentieth-century Hawaii, Apana's bravado inspired mystery writer Earl Derr Biggers, a Harvard graduate, to write six best-selling Charlie Chan novels. The resulting Hollywood character was not a stereotypical ?Chinaman? but a wisecracking sleuth with a knack for turning Oriental wisdom into soup-alley Chinatown blues. Yunte Huang's exploration of this remarkable story asks whether Chan is a ?Yellow Uncle Tom? or a ?swell dish of chop suey mystery.? Examining Charlie Chan in fact and fiction, Huang follows this untold story from the glittering beaches of Waikiki to the movie studios of Hollywood.