Earl Derr Biggers
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Earl Derr Biggers (August 24, 1884 - April 5, 1933) was an American novelist and playwright best known through adaptations of his novels, especially those featuring the Chinese-American detective Charlie Chan.
The son of Robert J. and Emma E. (Derr) Biggers, he was born in Warren, Ohio, and graduated from Harvard University in 1907. Many of his plays and novels were made into movies.
His novel Seven Keys to Baldpate led to seven films of the same title (each largely forgotten) and at least two with other titles but essentially equivalent plots. George M. Cohan (better known as a songwriter, and vaudeville and Broadway song-and-dance man) adapted the novel as a stage play, which undergoes occasional revivals as of the decade of the 2000s. He starred in the 1917 film version (one of his rare screen appearances) and the film version he later screenwrote (released in 1935) is perhaps the least forgotten of the seven films.
Biggers died of heart disease in Pasadena, California.
[edit] The Charlie Chan series
- 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)
[edit] Other works
- Seven Keys to Baldpate (1913)
- Love Insurance (1914)
- Inside the Lines (1915) (with Robert Welles Ritchie)
- The Agony Column (1916) (also published as Second Floor Mystery)
- Fifty Candles (1926)
- Earl Derr Biggers Tells Ten Stories (short stories) (1933)
