Francis Dolarhyde

Francis Dolarhyde
Hannibal Lecter character
Ralph Fiennes as Francis Dolarhyde in Red Dragon
Created by	Thomas Harris
Portrayed by	Tom Noonan (Manhunter) Ralph Fiennes (Red Dragon) Alex D. Linz (young; Red Dragon) Richard Armitage (Hannibal)
Voiced by	Frank Langella (Red Dragon, deleted scenes)
Information
Nickname(s)	The Tooth Fairy Mr. D D.
Aliases	The Great Red Dragon
Gender	Male
Occupation	Serial killer

Francis Dolarhyde is a fictional character in Thomas Harris' 1981 novel Red Dragon.

Dolarhyde is a serial killer who murders entire families by shooting them in their beds. He is nicknamed "The Tooth Fairy" due to the nocturnal nature of his crimes, his tendency to bite his victims' bodies, the uncommon size and sharpness of his teeth and other apparent oral fixations. He kills at the behest of an alternate personality; he refers to his other self as "The Great Red Dragon" after William Blake's painting The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun. He believes that killing people - or "changing" them, as he calls it - allows him to more fully "become" the Dragon.

Dolarhyde's backstory is supplied in the novel 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. 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 stepsister'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.