Buffalo Bill (The Silence of the Lambs)
fictional character from The Silence of the Lambs
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 lures, kidnaps, and skins women for the purpose of making a "woman suit" to fulfill his desire of female transformation. In the television series Clarice, he is portrayed by Simon Northwood.
Overview
Background
Jame Gumb was born in California on October 25, 1949. It is stated that the unusual spelling of his name is due to a clerical error on his birth certificate "that no one bothered to correct". Gumb's mother, an aspiring actress, went into an alcoholic decline after her career failed to materialize, and Gumb was placed in a foster home when he was two. The novel goes on to tell of Gumb living in foster homes until age 10, when he is adopted by his grandparents, who become his first victims when he impulsively kills them two years later. Gumb 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, Gumb kills Raspail's new lover, Klaus, and flays him.
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This entry incorporates text from “Buffalo Bill (The Silence of the Lambs)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.