Francis Dolarhyde is a fictional character and the main antagonist of Thomas Harris' 1981 novel Red Dragon, as well as its film adaptations, Manhunter and Red Dragon. Dolarhyde is a serial killer who murders entire families by methods which include gunshots, throat cutting and strangulation. 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. 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 watch as she pinches his penis between the blades of a pair of scissors after he wet his bed and threatens to "cut it off" 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 step-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. 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