Francis Dolarhyde

Character history

Dolarhyde's backstory is supplied in the novel in detail and alluded to in the film adaptations. Born in Springfield, Missouri on June 14, 1938 with a cleft lip and palate, he is abandoned by his mother and cared for in an orphanage until the age of five. He is then taken in by his grandmother, who subjects him to severe emotional and physical abuse, culminating in an incident in which she forces him to place his own penis between the blades of a pair of scissors after wetting the bed and threatening to emasculate him should he wet the bed again. Shortly afterwards, he begins torturing animals. After his grandmother becomes afflicted with dementia, Dolarhyde is turned over to the care of his estranged mother and her husband in St. Louis; he is further abused by this family. After his step-siblings smash his face into a bathroom mirror, Dolarhyde hangs his sister's cat and is sent back to the orphanage. After being caught breaking into a house at age 17, he enlists in the United States Army rather than serve prison time. While on his tour in Japan and neighboring countries, he learns how to develop film and receives cosmetic surgery for his cleft palate. Despite the surgery, Dolarhyde continues to view himself as deformed and grows a prominent mustache to cover what he thinks is a disfiguring scar.

After his honorable discharge, Dolarhyde gets a job with the Gateway Corp. in St. Louis, Missouri, as the production chief of their home movies division. He also takes up bodybuilding and becomes exceptionally strong; it is mentioned in the novel that even in middle age, Dolarhyde could have successfully competed in regional bodybuilding competitions, and at one point successfully cleans and presses three-hundred pounds which approaches record-setting status for the late 1970s era. Despite his self-perception of being hideously ugly, the women at Dolarhyde's job are intrigued by his quiet demeanor and athletic build.

In his early 40s, Dolarhyde sees the William Blake painting The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun, which gives voice to his alternate personality. Under the influence of "The Red Dragon," Dolarhyde murders two families in two months, on or near a full moon. (The novel implies that he had killed before that, perhaps in Asia during his military service.) Dolarhyde chooses his victims through the home movies that he edits as a film processing technician. In the days leading up to a full moon, Dolarhyde kills or injures the family pet and then spends nights in their backyard, watching the moon. On the night of the full moon, Dolarhyde uses a glass cutter to gain entry to the homes, then shoots his victims in their beds before ritualistically posing them around the master bed and engaging in necrophilic acts with the mothers' corpses. He then implants shards of mirror glass into his victims' eyes so he can see his own "transformation" into the Dragon. Rather than see his actions as murder, Dolarhyde believes that he is subjecting his victims to a process called "changing" which is beneficial to them in addition to helping him "become" the Dragon. To facilitate the process of "becoming," Dolarhyde travels to Hong Kong in order to have a large dragon tattooed across his back and has two sets of false teeth made. One set is normal for his day-to-day life, while the other - based on a mold of his grandmother's deformed teeth - is ritualistically incorporated into the dragon persona he assumes during his killings. Due to the nocturnal nature of the murders and Dolarhyde's tendency to bite the corpses of his victims with the malformed dentures, the tabloid The National Tattler nicknames him "The Tooth Fairy", a name which infuriates Dolarhyde.

FBI profiler Will Graham is asked to return from early retirement to aid in his capture. Graham had previously captured Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a psychiatrist and cannibalistic serial killer whom Dolarhyde idolizes, and to whom he sends a "fan letter" describing his murders. Graham visits Lecter in the Baltimore State Forensic Hospital for the Criminally Insane, hoping that the doctor would be able to help identify the killer or at least assist in creating a psychological profile. Following this meeting, Lecter "helps" by sending Dolarhyde Graham's address in code with the note, "Save yourself - kill them all." FBI Agent-in-Charge Jack Crawford intercepts the message in time to warn Graham's family and the local sheriff.

Dolarhyde becomes obsessed with coverage of his murders in The National Tattler and collects clippings about Lecter's arrest and trial, about Graham, and about his own murders. In an attempt to provoke Dolarhyde out of hiding, Graham gives an interview to Freddy Lounds of The Tattler, in which he says that "The Tooth Fairy" is impotent, homosexual, and possibly the product of incest; he also implies that Lecter is offended that the killer considers himself Lecter's equal. The interview enrages Dolarhyde, who kidnaps Lounds, intimidates him into recanting his article on tape, and then bites his lips off. Dolarhyde then sets Lounds on fire and rolls him down an incline into The Tattler's parking garage.

Meanwhile, Dolarhyde falls in love with a blind coworker named Reba McClane. She is attracted to his muscular physique and mysterious reputation, but more importantly to his lack of pity or condescension towards her blindness. The relationship initially quells his murderous impulses, but her presence only infuriates the other part of Dolarhyde's psyche. Desperate now to retain control of himself, Dolarhyde flies to New York, where he goes to see the original Blake watercolor at the Brooklyn Museum and devours it, believing that doing so would destroy the Dragon. This plan fails, though, as his ingestion of the painting only makes the Dragon angrier. In a final effort to save McClane, Dolarhyde attempts to kill himself in a motel bathroom by hanging himself from the shower rod, but the noose breaks before he can successfully suffocate.

The FBI and police investigations have so far found little result as the next full moon, and murders, is approaching. Trace evidence has led to dead ends, the killer's partial fingerprint has no match on file, and authorities can find no connection between the families. Eventually Graham realizes that the killer must have had access to the families' home movies, using details from the film to plan entry to the family homes. Both families film was processed at the same facility. From this fact, police eventually narrow down on Dolarhyde as the suspect.

Now completely under the thrall of the Dragon and aware of the investigation closing in on him, Dolarhyde plans to kill McClane and himself by setting his house on fire with her in it. He relents at the last minute, however, and frees her. Hearing a shotgun blast, McClane feels around Dolarhyde's burning living room and discovers what appears to be his dead body, which is incinerated in the subsequent blaze. However, Dolarhyde actually shot the corpse of a gas station attendant who had earlier offended him by leering at McClane, and whom he had kidnapped in order to stage his own disappearance. Police rescue McClane from the burning house.

Based on McClane's testimony and the male corpse in his house with the face ruined by a shotgun blast, he is believed to have killed himself. However, analysis eventually reveals that the corpse's fingerprints don't match prints at the crime scenes. Dolarhyde travels to Graham's home in Florida. He attacks Graham and stabs him in the face. Graham's wife Molly intercepts Dolarhyde, however, and shoots him dead.

Film adaptations

Dolarhyde has been twice portrayed in film adaptations of Harris' novel: by Tom Noonan in 1986's Manhunter (in which he was called "Dollarhyde") and by Ralph Fiennes in 2002's Red Dragon.

In deleted scenes in Red Dragon, Dolarhyde's Great Red Dragon personality is voiced by Frank Langella.

Television adaptation

On January 13, 2015, Richard Armitage was cast as Dolarhyde and appeared in season 3 of the television series Hannibal, beginning in episode 8, "The Great Red Dragon". Dolarhyde was referenced in the series premiere as the unseen murderer of the Marlowe family.

Inspiration

Harris loosely based Francis Dolarhyde on the then-unidentified serial killer known as "BTK" (Bind, Torture, Kill), who at the time of the book's publication was terrorizing Kansas with a series of murders, beginning with the murder of an entire family in their own home. Like Dolarhyde, BTK engaged in necrophiliac acts with his victims' bodies; he also wrote letters to the police alluding to an abusive childhood and being under the control of an outside influence, which he referred to as "Factor X". Harris had consulted with FBI Agent John E. Douglas prior to writing the book, and Douglas had served as a consultant on the BTK case for Kansas police. Harris was so impressed with Douglas that he borrowed aspects of his life story and personality for Will Graham and Jack Crawford.