He brought shudders to audiences worldwide as Jamie Gumb, the cross-dressing serial killer in "Silence of the Lambs" (1991) but the stage-trained Ted Levine has proven himself as a character player with range, portraying outlaws, jilted husbands, cops, drunks, and the like. Levine left Marlboro College in Vermont to pursue the stage, joining the Burlington (VT) Shakespeare Festival. He later toured as Sgt. Toomey in the national company of "Biloxi Blues." Dedication to theatre led Levine to turn to directing as well as acting and he established the Dratman Theatre Company in Ann Arbor, Michigan, before moving to Chicago to join first The Remains Ensemble and later the famed Steppenwolf Theatre Company. He has worked extensively at Steppenwolf, including a 1995 appearance in Sam Shepard's "Buried Child" directed by Gary Sinise.