Chang Apana:
Real Life Charlie Chan

 

A Presentation by
Nanette Napoleon
Eddie Croom

 

THE HAWAIIAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY invites its members and friends to a presentation titled “Chang Apana: The Real life Charlie Chan” on Thursday, April 26, 2007, at the University of Hawai‘i Kamakakūokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies Auditorium, located at 2645 Dole Street, Honolulu. The program begins at 7:30 p.m.and is free and open to the public.

The program will feature a twenty-minute video documentary titled, “The Real Charlie Chan.” It is part of a four-movie DVD set of newly mastered Charlie Chan movies released by 20th Century Fox in the summer of 2006.

Kailua freelance researcher Nanette Napoleon was hired by 20th Century Fox to collect information about Apana from local archival resources and is one of those interviewed in the piece. Officer Eddie Croom, curator of the Honolulu Police Department Museum, is also featured in the video. After the showing of the featurette, Napoleon and Croom will talk more about Chang Apana’s life and times.

In 1920, Earl Derr Biggers, a Boston mystery writer, was vacationing in Waikiki at Gray’s By-the-Sea. He contemplated setting the scene of a future novel in tropical Honolulu. Four years later, while looking through Honolulu newspapers for story ideas, he found several articles about a Honolulu Police Department detective named Chang Apana. Apana was frequently in the news because of his sensational arrests and unorthodox style of crime fighting. Rather than carry a gun, Apana only carried his signature bull whip, which he used frequently and with great skill.

Immediately, Biggers hit on the idea of a good-guy Chinese policeman for a mystery story set in Honolulu. The novel was House Without a Key. It became an instant success and spawned five more books and forty-eight movies based on the activities of the main character, Detective Charlie Chan of the Honolulu Police Department.

Meanwhile, Chang Apana’s real-life police exploits earned him much praise within the police department and community at large. When he died in 1933, his funeral procession rivaled many of the grand ali‘i processions of the era.

The Society's annual business meeting to present the president’s report for 2006–2007 and to elect new trustees and the president for 2007–2008 will precede the evening program.

The Hawaiian Historical Society is grateful to the Kamakakūokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies for the use of its auditorium for this program. Parking is available in the adjacent parking structure for $3.00.

For further information, contact the Hawaiian Historical Society office, 560 Kawaiaha‘o Street, Honolulu, Hawai‘i 96813. Telephone 808-537-6271. E-mail: bedunn@lava.net.