Thomas Harris is an American writer who has a net worth of $20 million. He is best known for a series of suspense novels about his most famous character, Hannibal Lecter. The majority of his works have been adapted into films and television, the most notable being The Silence of the Lambs, which became only the third film in Academy Awards history to sweep the Oscars in major categories.
That series includes the books Red Dragon which was published in 1981, The Silence of the Lambs in 1988, Hannibal in 1999, and Hannibal Rising in 2006.
Harris was born in Jackson, Tennessee, but moved as a child with his family to Rich, Mississippi. He was introverted and bookish in grade school and then blossomed in high school. He attended Baylor University in Waco, Texas, where he majored in English and graduated in 1964. While in college, he worked as a reporter for the local newspaper, the Waco Tribune-Herald, covering the police beat. In 1968, he moved to New York City to work for Associated Press until 1974 when he began work on his debut novel, Black Sunday.
In his first major interview in 43 years, to The New York Times in 2019 to promote Cari Mora, he revealed himself to be a nature lover, and a long-time visitor and volunteer of the Pelican Harbor Seabird Station, an animal rescue center in Miami, Florida for 20 years. The staff were not aware of who Harris was until a few years prior to when the interview was conducted. He described fame as “more of a nuisance than anything else”
