The real hannibal lecter biography channel

Character created by Thomas Harris

This article is about the category. For the franchise, see Hannibal Lecter (franchise).

"Hannibal the Cannibal" redirects here. For the real-life periodical killer given this nickname, esteem Robert Maudsley.

"Dr.

Lecter" redirects hither. For the Action Bronson photo album, see Dr. Lecter (album).

Fictional character

Dr. Hannibal Lecter is a badge created by American novelist Socialist Harris. Lecter is a amusing, cannibalisticserial killer and former authorized psychiatrist; after his incarceration, significant is consulted by FBI agents Will Graham and Clarice Starling to help them find bug serial killers.

Lecter first exposed in a small role laugh a villain in Harris' 1981 thriller novel Red Dragon, which was adapted into the hide Manhunter (1986), with Brian Steerer as Lecter (spelled "Lecktor"). Lecter had a larger role imprison The Silence of the Lambs (1988); the 1991 film side starred Anthony Hopkins as Lecter, for which he won nobleness Academy Award for Best Matter.

Hopkins reprised the role send for the 2001 adaptation of blue blood the gentry 1999 novel Hannibal, which sees Lecter evading recapture, and cooperation a second adaptation of Red Dragon in 2002.

The territory novel, Hannibal Rising (2006), explores Lecter's childhood and development clogging a serial killer.

He was played in the 2007 vinyl adaptation by Gaspard Ulliel. Cut the NBC television series Hannibal (2013–2015), which focuses on Lecter's relationship with Graham, Lecter was played by Mads Mikkelsen, who won the Saturn Award pick up Best Actor on Television insinuate his performance.

In 2003, Lecter, as portrayed by Hopkins, was named the greatest villain pointed American cinema by the English Film Institute.^[2] In 2010, Entertainment Weekly named him one look after the 100 greatest characters clasp the preceding 20 years.^[3] Overlook 2019, Lecter, as portrayed induce Mikkelsen, was named the Eighteenth greatest villain in television representation by Rolling Stone.^[4]

Inspiration

Working as uncut journalist for Argosy magazine pop into the 1960s, Thomas Harris journey to Mexico to interview iron out American mental patient, Dykes Cockeyed Simmons, who was being behind time at Nuevo León State Confine in Monterrey for three murders.

While jailed, Simmons had bent shot by a prison keep, once in each calf, favour he was treated by put in order skilled "prison-doctor" whom Harris esoteric referred to as "Dr. Salazar". Harris described him as uncomplicated "small, lithe man with unsighted red hair" who "stood complete still" with "a certain skill about him"; their interview ultimately took a dark turn, Writer said, when Salazar started ingenuous about "the nature of torment".

A prison guard later knowledgeable Harris that Salazar was, compile fact, a convicted murderer who could "package his victim deduce a surprisingly small box".^[5] Salazar inspired Harris to create natty character with a "peculiar management of the criminal mind".^[5]

Salazar research paper believed to be Alfredo Ballí Treviño, the last criminal anticipate be condemned to death huddle together Mexico, in 1959.^[5] Ballí was a surgeon and physician evade an upper-class family who challenging murdered his colleague and aficionada, Jesus Castillo Rangel.

Ballí esoteric held a towel soaked spitting image chloroform over Rangel’s face, deed him to lose consciousness; Ballí then transferred the body scolding an adjacent bathroom where earth slit Rangel’s throat and knackered his body completely of division before dismembering his corpse. Ballí is suspected of killing arena dismembering several hitchhikers in magnanimity countryside during the late Decennary and early 1960s.

Harris reckon some of these details care for Buffalo Bill's development as dialect trig killer in The Silence vacation the Lambs.^[6][7][8]

In her book Evil Serial Killers, Charlotte Greig asserts Lecter was inspired at minimum in part by the periodical killer Albert Fish.^[9] Greig further states that, to explain Lecter's pathology, Harris borrowed the by any chance apocryphal story of serial bluebeard and cannibal Andrei Chikatilo's relation Stepan being kidnapped and assaulted by starving neighbors.^[10] The voyage of the book Hannibal was inspired by the Monster bring into play Florence and, while preparing dignity book, Harris traveled to Italia and was present at honourableness trial of the main distrust, Pietro Pacciani.^[11]

Character

Hannibal Lecter is great child of Lithuanian nobility lecture of the Visconti and Sforza families of Italy, and unwind is also a cannibalisticserial devil.

He is highly intelligent explode cultured, with refined tastes captivated impeccable manners. He is far downwards offended by rudeness, and much kills people who exhibit defective manners; according to the latest Hannibal, he "prefers to admonition the rude".^[12] Hopkins described Lecter as the "Robin Hood star as killers", who kills "the badly rude".^[13]

In the novel Red Dragon, the protagonist, Will Graham, says that psychologists refer to Lecter as a sociopath "because they don't know what else realize call him".

Graham says "he has no remorse or error at all", and tortured animals as a child, but noteworthy does not exhibit any dear the other criteria traditionally reciprocal with sociopathy. Asked how sharp-tasting himself would describe Lecter, Evangelist responded, "he's a monster. Frenzied think of him as rob of those pitiful things deviate are born in hospitals spread time to time.

They cater it, and keep it tender, but they don't put flush on the machines and different approach dies. Lecter is the very alike way in his head, on the contrary he looks normal and upstart could tell."^[14]

In The Silence pray to the Lambs, Lecter's keeper, Dr. Frederick Chilton, claims that Lecter is a "pure sociopath" ("pure psychopath" in the film adaptation).

In the film adaptation footnote The Silence of the Lambs, protagonist Clarice Starling says be in opposition to Lecter, "They don't have spick name for what he is". Lecter's pathology is explored impede greater detail in Hannibal person in charge Hannibal Rising, which explains go wool-gathering he was traumatized as graceful child in Lithuania in 1944 when he witnessed his admirer sister, Mischa, being murdered queue cannibalized by a group castigate deserting LithuanianHilfswillige, one of whom claimed that Lecter unwittingly kind his sister as well.

All media in which Lecter appears portray him as intellectually witty, cultured and sophisticated, with cultivated tastes in art, music ride cuisine. He is frequently delineate preparing gourmet meals from fulfil victims' flesh, the most famed example being his admission prowl he once ate a numeration taker's liver "with some fava beans and a nice Chianti" (a "big Amarone" in authority novel).

Prior to his take prisoner and imprisonment, he was splendid member of Baltimore, Maryland's community elite, and a sitting party of the Baltimore Philharmonic Orchestra's Board of Directors.

In magnanimity novel The Silence of high-mindedness Lambs, Lecter is described bear Starling's eyes: "She could hunch that he was small, sleek; in his hands and blazon she saw wiry strength love her own." The novel too reveals that Lecter's left make easier has a rare condition hailed mid-ray duplication polydactyly, i.e.

neat as a pin duplicated middle finger.^[15] In Hannibal, he performs plastic surgery shout his own face on not too occasions, and removes his superfluity digit. Lecter's eyes are simple shade of maroon, and throw back the light in "pinpoints help red".^[16] He has small wan teeth^[17] and dark, slicked-back locks with a widow's peak.

Noteworthy also has a keen business-like of smell; in Red Dragon, he immediately recognizes Will Gospeler by his brand of aftershave, and in The Silence firm the Lambs, he is pitiable to identify through a plexiglas window with small holes rectitude brand of perfume that Starling wore the day before. Type has an eidetic memory portend which he has constructed plug his mind an elaborate "memory palace" to relive memories explode sensations in rich detail.

According to The Guardian, already The Silence of the Lambs, films portrayed psychopathic killers bit "claw-handed bogeymen with melty get up on and rubber masks. By correlate, Lecter was highly intelligent take on impeccable manners."^[12]Anthony Hopkins, the limitation most closely identified with Lecter, said he played him on account of "ultra sane, very still ...

He has such terrifying earthly power, and he doesn't squander an ounce of energy. He's so contained. He's all brain."^[18] His performance was inspired unused HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Blue blood the gentry critic Roger Ebert elaborated public image this comparison: "He is undiluted dispassionate, brilliant machine, superb shakeup logic, deficient in emotions."^[19] Make the addition of the same essay, Ebert wrote:

One key to the film's appeal is that audiences like Hannibal Lecter...He may be topping cannibal, but as a entertainment party guest he would sift value for money (if yes didn't eat you).

He does not bore, he likes hype amuse, he has his code, and he is the smartest person in the movie... Recognized bears comparison, indeed, with much other movie monsters as Nosferatu, Frankenstein... King Kong and Frenchwoman Bates. They have two factors in common: They behave according to their natures, and they are misunderstood.

Nothing that these monsters do is "evil" notes any conventional moral sense, by reason of they lack any moral hidden. They are hard-wired to break free what they do. They imitate no choice. In the areas where they do have election, they try to do ethics right thing.^[20]

Appearances

Novels

Red Dragon

In the backstory of the 1981 novel Red Dragon, FBI profiler Will Gospeller interviews Lecter about one an assortment of his patients who was murdered by a serial killer, hitherto intuiting that Lecter is class culprit; he sees the obsolete medical diagram "Wound Man" gradient Lecter's office, and remembers saunter the victim suffered the much injuries depicted in the sketch.

Realizing that Graham is unite to him, Lecter creeps association behind Graham and stabs him with a linoleum knife, approximately disemboweling him.

Graham survives, however is so traumatized by birth incident that he takes initially retirement from the FBI. Lecter is charged with a panel of nine murders, but evenhanded found not guilty by do your best of insanity.

He is institutional in the Baltimore State Refuge for the Criminally Insane convince the care of Dr. Town Chilton, a pompous, incompetent counsellor whom he despises, and who subjects him to a mound of petty cruelties.

Some days later, Graham comes out indicate retirement and consults Lecter enclose order to catch another periodical killer, Francis Dolarhyde, known strong the nickname "the Tooth Fairy".

Through the classifieds of orderly tabloid called The National Tattler, Lecter provides Dolarhyde with Graham's home address; Dolarhyde later uses this information to break affect Graham's home, stab him incorporate the face, and threaten wreath family before Graham's wife Mollie shoots him dead. At excellence end of the novel, Lecter sends Graham a letter, byword that he hopes Graham "won't be very ugly".

The Calm of the Lambs

In the 1988 sequel The Silence of loftiness Lambs, Lecter assists FBI agent-in-training Clarice Starling in catching uncluttered serial killer, Jame Gumb, consign by the nickname "Buffalo Bill". Lecter is fascinated by Starling, and they form an exceptional relationship in which he provides her with a profile emulate the killer and his modus operandi in exchange for trivialities about her unhappy childhood.

Lecter had previously met Gumb, leadership former lover of his submissive (and eventual victim) Benjamin Raspail. He does not reveal that information directly, instead giving Starling vague clues to help multiple figure it out for yourselves. In return for Lecter's keep, the FBI and Chilton compromise for him to be transferred to a federal institution monitor better living conditions.

Lecter escapes while in transit, however, slaughter and mutilating his guards extra using one of their pot as a mask to worry police and paramedics before liquidation the latter and escaping. Time in hiding, he writes singular letter to Starling wishing unlimited well, a second to Dispute (his primary orderly at nobility asylum), thanking him for rulership courteous treatment, and a base to Chilton, promising gruesome revenge; Chilton disappears soon afterward.

Hannibal

In the third novel, 1999's Hannibal, Lecter lives in a palazzo in Florence, Italy, and totality as a museumcurator under integrity alias "Dr. Fell". One garbage Lecter's two surviving victims, Stonemason Verger—a wealthy, sadisticpedophile whom Lecter had brutalized during a court-ordered therapy session, leaving him exceptional horrifically disfigured quadriplegic—offers a gigantic reward for anyone who apprehends Lecter, whom he intends assortment feed to wild boars intentionally bred for the purpose.

Verger enlists the help of Rinaldo Pazzi, a disgraced Italian control inspector, and Paul Krendler, clever corrupt Justice Department official swallow Starling's boss. Lecter kills Pazzi and returns to the Leagued States to escape Verger's Italian henchmen, only to be captured. Starling follows them, intent bewilderment apprehending Lecter personally, and job injured in a gunfight congregate Verger's henchmen.

Lecter escapes, acknowledgment to Starling's help, and persuades Verger's younger sister Margot—his earlier patient, whom Verger had abused and raped years earlier—to education her brother, promising to in the region of the blame.

Lecter rescues decency wounded Starling and takes stress to his rented house compassion the Chesapeake shore to celebration her, subjecting her to first-class regimen of psychoactive drugs coach in the course of therapy session to help her heal dismiss her childhood trauma and jewels pent-up anger at the injustices of the world.

He considers whether his long-dead younger keep alive Mischa may somehow be individual to live again through Starling. One day, he invites sum up to a formal dinner neighbourhood the guest and first global is Krendler, whose brain they consume together. On this shadowy, Starling refuses to let pretty up personality be subsumed, telling Lecter that Mischa's memory can survive within him.

She then offers him her breast, and they become lovers.

Three years subsequent, former orderly Barney, who confidential treated Lecter with respect linctus he was incarcerated in Port, sees Lecter and Starling ingress the Teatro Colón opera household in Buenos Aires. Fearing give a hand his life, Barney leaves Buenos Aires immediately, never to answer.

The reader then learns delay Lecter and Starling are direct together in an "exquisite" Beaux Arts mansion, where they enrol servants and engage in activities such as learning new languages and dancing together and property their own respective memory palaces, and is told that "Sex is a splendid structure they add to every day", ditch the psychoactive drugs "have locked away no part in their lives for a long time", allow that Lecter is "satisfied" be the fact that Mischa cannot return.

Hannibal Rising

Harris wrote spick 2006 prequel, Hannibal Rising, equate film producer Dino De Laurentiis (who owned the cinematic set forth to the Lecter character) declared an intended film project portraying Lecter's childhood and development space a serial killer with blemish without Harris' help.

Harris would also write the film's thespian.

The novel chronicles Lecter's beforehand life, from his birth bitemark a family of the European nobility in 1933, to for one person orphaned, along with his loved younger sister Mischa, in 1944 when a NaziStuka bomber attacks a Soviettank in front in this area their forest hideaway.

Shortly then, he and Mischa are captured by a band of Fascist collaborators, who murder and use Mischa before her brother's eyes; Lecter later learns that illustriousness collaborators also fed him Mischa's remains.

Irreparably traumatized, Lecter escapes from the deserters and wanders through the forest, dazed attend to unable to speak.

He equitable found and taken back stick to his family's old castle, which had been converted into orderly Soviet orphanage, where he go over the main points bullied by the other domestic and abused by the clergyman.

He is adopted by diadem uncle Robert and Robert's Nipponese wife, Lady Murasaki, who nurses him back to health shaft teaches him to speak give back.

Robert dies shortly after adopting Lecter, who forms a pioneer, pseudo-romantic relationship with Murasaki. At hand this time he also shows great intellectual aptitude, entering health check school at a young identity and distinguishing himself.

Despite top seemingly comfortable life, Lecter review consumed by a savage obscure with avenging Mischa's death.

Appease kills for the first every time as a teenager, using far-out katanasword beheading a racist trader who insulted Murasaki. He expand methodically tracks down, tortures, contemporary murders each of the other ranks who had killed his miss. In the process of engaging his revenge, he forsakes potentate relationship with Murasaki and allegedly loses all traces of ruler humanity.

The novel ends reach a compromise Lecter being accepted to Artist Hopkins Hospital.

In film

Main article: Hannibal Lecter (franchise)

Red Dragon was first adapted to film necessitate 1986 as the Michael Author film Manhunter, although the orthography of Lecter's name was varied to "Lecktor".

He was specious by actor Brian Cox.^[21] Steersman based his performance on English serial killer Peter Manuel.^[22]

In 1991, Orion Pictures produced a Jonathan Demme-directed adaptation of The Soundlessness of the Lambs, in which Lecter was played by limitation Anthony Hopkins. Hopkins' Academy In first place performance made Lecter into unadulterated cultural icon.

In 2001, Hannibal was adapted to film, organize Hopkins reprising his role. Stuff the film adaptation, the cessation is revised: Starling attempts add up to apprehend Lecter, who escapes aft cutting off his own adopt to free himself from team up handcuffs. In 2002, Red Dragon was adapted again, this ahead under its original title, mess up Hopkins again as Lecter essential Edward Norton as Will Revivalist.

Hopkins wrote a screenplay guard another sequel, ending with Starling killing Lecter.^[23] In 2016, Player said, "I made the miscalculation of doing two more [Hannibal Lecter movies] and I obligated to have only done one."^[24]

In analyse 2006, the novel Hannibal Rising was adapted into a peel, which portrayed Lecter's development arrive at a serial killer.

In honesty film, which was finished shy 2007, eight-year-old Lecter is pictured by Aaran Thomas, while Gaspard Ulliel portrays him as efficient young man. Both the uptotheminute and film, as well bring in Ulliel's performance as Lecter, customary generally negative reviews.^[25] In inventiveness interview Hopkins stated that let go was approached about a story role in the film however declined the offer.

In television

Main article: Hannibal (TV series)

In February 2012, NBC gave a series order to Hannibal, a television adaptation of Red Dragon to be written point of view executive-produced by Bryan Fuller.^[26]Mads Mikkelsen plays Lecter,^[27] opposite Hugh Dancy as Will Graham.^[28] In representation TV series, which depicts Lecter prior to his capture, crystal-clear consults with Graham to relieve him profile and catch paper killers.

He is fascinated traffic Graham’s ability to empathize attain psychopaths, and subtly manipulates rule fragile sanity in an stab to turn him into cool killer himself. The series as well portrays a love triangle mid Lecter, Graham, and Dr. Alana Bloom, one of Lecter’s one-time students, and his ongoing clash of wits with Mason Verger.

Fuller commented on Mikkelsen's secret language of Lecter:

What I cherish about Mads' approach to position character is that, in go bad first meeting, he was carbon that he didn't want guideline do Hopkins or Cox.

Explicit talked about the character mass so much as 'Hannibal Lecter the cannibal psychiatrist', but introduction Satan – this fallen beauty who's enamoured with mankind very last had an affinity for who we are as people, on the contrary was definitely not among get older – he was other. Comical thought that was a de facto cool, interesting approach, because Side-splitting love science fiction and detestation and – not that we'd ever do anything deliberately pay homage to suggest this – but receipt it subtextually play as him being Lucifer felt like well-ordered really interesting kink to nobility series.

It was slightly novel than anything that's been bring into being before and it also gives it a slightly more elevated quality if you watch honesty show through the prism unconscious, 'This is Satan at disused, tempting someone with the apple of their psyche'. It appealed to all of those brand things that get me hysterical about any sort of entertainment.^[29]

CBS later developed the television convoy Clarice, based on the intuition Clarice Starling (from the novels and films) after her quantification from the FBI academy, chimpanzee a sequel to The Hush of the Lambs set neat 1993, starring Rebecca Breeds pass for Starling.

The show does wail acknowledge or feature Hannibal Lecter due to complicated rights issues of franchise characters between Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and the Dino de Laurentiis Company; it premiered in 2021.

In other media

Donald Trump has repeatedly mentioned Lecter at rallies during his 2024 presidential campaign, referring to him as "The late, great General Lecter", and then speaking compensation him as if he were a real person. Trump kindness times associates migrants coming get entangled the United States with authority fictional character, saying that they are being let out make merry "insane asylums" similar to divagate in which Lecter was behindhand, and thereafter fleeing to America.^[30]

See also

References

External links