Frederick Chilton
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Dr. Frederick Chilton is a fictional character appearing in Thomas Harris' novels Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs. In Manhunter, Chilton is played by Benjamin Hendrickson. In both The Silence of the Lambs and Red Dragon, he is played by Anthony Heald.
[edit] In the novels
Chilton is introduced in Red Dragon as the director of the Chesapeake State Hospital for the Criminally Insane and later Baltimore Hospital for the Criminally Insane. There, he treats his most infamous patient, Hannibal Lecter.
His role in the novel Red Dragon is a minor one. The book's villain, Francis Dolarhyde, finds out from a tabloid article written by Freddy Lounds that Will Graham is seeking advice from Lecter, who replies by sending him a coded message in the personal ads section of Lounds' paper, The National Tattler. Before Lecter's reply goes to press, however, a cleaning crew finds Dolarhyde's letter, written on toilet paper, hidden within Lecter's personal toilet paper spool. Chilton springs into action, calling the FBI to inform Graham and Jack Crawford. This leads to the interception of Lecter's reply, and the discovery that a coded message within it is Graham's home address, which in the book and the second film, Dolarhyde uses to track Graham down.
In The Silence of the Lambs, Chilton is once again called upon to allow an FBI agent to interview Lecter about an at-large serial killer, "Buffalo Bill." This time it is Clarice Starling, at whom he makes a clumsy pass, which is quickly rejected. Starling piques Lecter's interest at first by admitting her disdain for his hated keeper, and her visits with Lecter become much more frequent. Chilton grows jealous and resentful of Lecter's willingness to cooperate and share information with her, but not with him.
He places recording devices in Lecter's cell to listen in on his conversations with Starling, and stumbles onto a goldmine: Starling, under Crawford's orders, made an offer to Lecter, that he would receive a transfer to a better prison facility and a week-long annual vacation if information he provided led to the arrest of Buffalo Bill. Chilton investigates this claim, and quickly finds that this bargain is false, and that Senator Ruth Martin, the mother of Buffalo Bill's captive, had not agreed to such a transfer. Chilton sets it up anyway, and quickly hogs the spotlight as the arrangement's architect.
Lecter agrees and is transferred, but gives false information to Senator Martin and Paul Krendler from the Justice Department; he tells them the killer's name is "Billy Rubin," a reference to bilirubin, a pigment found in feces — and the exact shade of Chilton's hair. This effectively shuts out the FBI. However, he reserves the best information for Starling, and using that, she tracks Gumb down to Belvedere, Ohio. Lecter himself escapes custody, however, and Chilton becomes involved in the manhunt to recapture him. At the end of the book, Lecter sends a letter to Chilton, indicating that he intends to get revenge on Chilton, and that when he is done, he will need to be fed through a tube, and that feeding instructions should be "tattooed on his forehead to save paperwork."
Chilton does not appear in Hannibal, and the hospital has been shut down. The novel mentions that Chilton disappeared while on vacation in Jamaica seven years earlier. It is strongly suggested that he was killed by Lecter.
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| Novels Red Dragon • The Silence of the Lambs |
Main Characters |
Films Manhunter • The Silence of the Lambs • Hannibal |
| Secondary Characters List of minor characters in the Hannibal series |
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