Hemmeter, whose name came to symbolize the brass-and-marble excess of Hawai'i in the 1980s and who remains one of the most influential people ever to do business here, is making a bid to beat cancer at 64.

Ever the optimist, the developer of fantasy-like resorts and gleaming office buildings is confident he can win the biggest challenge of a life that already has traversed the highest peaks of wealth and power and the lowest valleys of despair.

Fighting Parkinson's and 30 tumors — one as big as a tennis ball inside his abdomen — Hemmeter has been celebrating the seven months he has survived since his doctor projected he'd have six months to live.

"I'm in direct competition with this cancer, and it's either they're going to win or I'm going to win," he said. "I'm determined to win. I've beat it by a month, and I suspect I can beat it by years."

Earlier this week, Hemmeter said he felt relatively well. There was barely a quiver in his hands. His speech was steady. He celebrated his birthday at a surprise party Wednesday at a Kahala house full of friends.

The developer, who considers Hawai'i home though he has been back only three or four times since he left 13 years ago, is best known for the extreme — some would say outrageous — lavishness of Hawai'i hotels he built in the 1980s.

At 26, he headed a group of restaurant owners at the International Market Place. Advertiser library photo

Before he began building hotels, the Washington, D.C.-born Hemmeter thought he would make a name for himself managing them.

In 1962, at age 23, the top graduate of Cornell University's School of Hotel Administration accepted a job at Sheraton's Royal Hawaiian Hotel as a management trainee. Ten months into the three-year program, Hemmeter told the hotel manager he wanted to own hotels instead.

Asked where he'd get the money, Hemmeter recalled responding: "I have no idea, but somehow I'll put it together. If I have to be a bartender or whatever, that's my goal, that's my dream, that's what I want to be."

He quit, borrowed some money, and with partners developed two fancy restaurants, the Top of the I and Pier Seven at the Ilikai Hotel. He went on to develop more restaurants, which he reportedly sold for $1.5 million in 1965.

Eight years later, Hemmeter put his worth at several million dollars. Advertiser library photo

Then he convinced Bank of Hawaii and a consortium of lenders to finance construction of the Hyatt Regency Waikiki. At a cost of $100 million, the 1,260-room twin-tower hotel atop a retail center represented the largest construction project and private loan in Hawai'i.

Hawaii Business magazine named Hemmeter its 1977 businessman of the year, and the developer went on to build more creative hotels with eye-popping excess in architecture, art, boat shuttles, waterfalls, pools, animal collections and other features.

"He always went above and beyond," said Cathy George, a friend and real estate broker who recalled Hemmeter had brought in an artisan from Monaco to do trim work on a $3.8 million house she sold him in 1985.

Hemmeter also made unsuccessful bids to become a state legislator, buy Hawaiian Airlines, acquire Bank of Honolulu, and rescue the World Football League.

Chris Hemmeter spoke at the dedication of the Hyatt Regency Waikoloa, one of the gleaming developments for which he is known. Advertiser library photo • April 23, 1986

In 1988, Forbes magazine listed Hemmeter as the 389th wealthiest person in America, with $225 million in assets.

Even the Westin Kauai, damaged by Hurricane 'Iniki in 1992 and repossessed by the bank, was a project on which he said he made millions.

The developer was flying high —literally in his own private 737 — traveling the world, hosting presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan at his Kahala and Black Point homes, pledging $2 million to lure the America's Cup yacht race to Hawai'i and generously giving to philanthropic causes.

But his string of business successes was cut short in 1990 when a rival development proposal beat his $1.3 billion plan to redevelop the area surrounding Aloha Tower.

Hemmeter left the state to pursue what he viewed as better opportunities on the Mainland, where he saw plenty of capital and potential profits in casino development.

The Hawai'i developer convinced the city of New Orleans to lease him city property and a license for a $1 billion casino.

The project struggled financially and was forced into bankruptcy in 1995, before it was completed. Hemmeter, who blames government corruption for the project's demise, also endured the failure of two riverboat casinos in New Orleans and bankruptcies of his Bushwhackers Casinos in Colorado and a publicly traded real estate investment trust he headed.

In 1997, Hemmeter was forced to seek personal bankruptcy, reporting $87 million in debts and $720,000 in assets.

He regards the New Orleans debacle as his greatest triumph — for winning the development rights — and his worst experience, because of medical problems he associates with stress. The episode also wiped out his Hawai'i financial gains.

"Thirty-five years of work ... that was the end of it," he said. "We ended up paying a terrible price."

The developer said he wanted to rebuild his career, but maintaining his health had become a priority.

Hemmeter believes the genesis of his cancers — prostate and cholangiocarcinoma, a rare cancer of the bile duct connecting the liver and small intestine — could have started in 1995, when Parkinson's also appeared.

Nowadays, the former developer cannot lift himself from a prone position on the floor. It can take him 20 minutes to recover from walking up a flight of stairs. And his wife, Patricia, helps him dress.

But there are good days, too, when his strength is better, though Hemmeter spends hours in the hospital three days a week and undergoes chemotherapy.

Still, Patricia said that since her husband was told he probably had six months to live, he had welcomed daily visits and calls from friends such as Lee Iacocca, Paula Abdul and former president Carter, for whom Hemmeter developed a library and museum complex at Emory University.

"This is still the same optimist," Patricia said. "It's his will to live."

George, Hemmeter's former real estate agent, said the optimism sounded like her old friend. "That would be Chris — he would always have that attitude," she said.

Last week, the developer was encouraged to try a liver transplant that offers a 25 percent chance of success, but he had to forego the operation because he was too weak.

It's his goal to rebuild strength and hope for another match for a liver, despite long odds for a successful operation.

"I figure somebody's got to be part of that 25 percent," he said.

His other plans, depending on his health, include a 22-day trip through Europe and acting as an advisor to Saddle Ranch Chop House, a theme restaurant opened recently at Universal Studios Hollywood by Boulder, Colo.-based Hemmeter Cos., headed by his son Mark.

Hemmeter said he does not plan to move back to Hawai'i until he's buried here. And typically, he isn't planning on that anytime soon.