Jame Gumb (known by the nickname "Buffalo Bill") is a fictional character and the main antagonist of Thomas Harris's 1988 novel The Silence of the Lambs and its 1991 film adaptation, in which he is played by Ted Levine. In the film and the novel, he is a serial killer who murders overweight women and skins them so he can make a "woman suit" for himself. In the television series Clarice, he is portrayed by Simon Northwood. Overview Background Gumb was born in California in 1948 or 1949. It is stated that "The 'Jame' on his birth certificate apparently was a clerical error that no one bothered to correct." Gumb's mother, an aspiring actress, went into an alcoholic decline after her career failed to materialize, and Los Angeles County placed Gumb in a foster home when he was two. The novel goes on to tell of Gumb living in foster homes until the age of 10, when he is adopted by his grandparents, who become his first victims when he impulsively kills them at age 12. He is institutionalized in Tulare Vocational Rehabilitation, a psychiatric hospital, where he learns to be a tailor. Later, Gumb has a relationship with Benjamin Raspail. After Raspail leaves him, he kills Raspail's new lover, Klaus, and flays him. The screenplay omits Gumb's backstory, but does imply that he had a traumatic childhood. In the film, Hannibal Lecter summarizes Gumb's life thus: "Our Billy wasn't born a criminal, Clarice. He was made one through years of systematic abuse." Both the novel and film depict Gumb as hating his own identity, though multiple characters state that Gumb is not transsexual. In the novel, multiple examples of how Gumb does not fit the psychological profile of a real transsexual are given. Gumb wants to become a woman—or at least believes he does—but repeatedly fails to qualify for gender reassignment surgery. He kills women so he can skin them and create a "woman suit" for himself, completing his "transformation". He thinks of his victims as things rather than people, often calling them "it"—hence one of his most famous lines from the film, "It rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again." The only living thing he feels real affection for is his dog, a toy poodle named "Precious". Modus operandi Gumb's modus operandi (MO) is to approach a woman while pretending to be