Frederick Chilton

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Chilton taunts Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs.

Dr. Frederick Chilton is a fictional character appearing in Thomas Harris' novels Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs.

In the novels

Chilton is introduced in Red Dragon as the pompous, incompetent director of the Chesapeake State Hospital for the Criminally Insane and later Baltimore Hospital for the Criminally Insane. There, he is the jailer of his most infamous patient, the cannibalistic serial killer 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 a recording device on the chair that Starling uses when she interviews Lecter to listen in on his conversations, and stumbles onto a goldmine: Starling, under Crawford's orders, makes an offer to Lecter, that he would receive a transfer to a better prison facility and a week-long annual vacation where he will be able to walk on a beach (on a restricted island with full SWAT security) if information he provides led to the arrest of Buffalo Bill and (hopefully) the release of his latest victim. Chilton investigates this claim, and quickly finds that this offer is false, and that Senator Ruth Martin, the mother of Buffalo Bill's captive, has 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. The difference between the film and the novel is that in the film, Dr. Lecter gave the false name of "Louis Friend," which is an anagram for iron sulfide (fool's gold). This agreement effectively shuts out the FBI. However, Lector reserves the best tidbit of information for Starling, and using that, she is able to track the true killer, Jame Gumb, to Belvedere, Ohio. However, Lecter himself escapes custody — after using a part of a pen he stole from Chilton to unlock his handcuffs — and Chilton becomes involved in the manhunt to recapture him.

At the end of the novel, Lecter sends a letter to Chilton, indicating that he intends to get revenge upon his former adversary, and that when he is done, Chilton will need to be fed through a tube, and that, to save paperwork, feeding instructions should be "tattooed on his forehead." In the film version of the novel, Lecter calls Starling from a tropical destination, watching Chilton as he disembarks from a plane nearby. Lecter remarks that "I do wish we could chat longer, but I'm having an old friend for dinner" before hanging up and casually following Chilton through a village.

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 intercepted, captured, and eventually killed by Lecter.

In other media

In Manhunter, the first film adaptation of Red Dragon, Chilton is played by Benjamin Hendrickson. In both The Silence of the Lambs and Red Dragon, he is played by Anthony Heald.