Bill Compton

 is a fictional vampire from "The Southern Vampire Mysteries" series of novels written by Charlaine Harris. The novels have been adapted into the popular HBO television series, True Blood, where the role of was played by actor Stephen Moyer.

Before the Bite
Bill Compton was born in the year 1835 in a small "hole in the road" town known as Bon Temps, Louisiana. His family lived in a large plantation house and his father owned two slaves; a house slave and a yard slave named Minas. When he was sixteen-years-old, he met Jonas Stackhouse, a family man who established a farmhouse across the fields from the Compton estate.

As a young man, Bill married a woman named Sarah and had five children. At the age of thirty, he was enlisted in the United States army and served during the American Civil War. Following a battle, Bill was separated from his unit and found shelter with a woman named Lorena; a woman who professed to be a widow who occasionally helped out officers in time of need. After enjoying Lorena's hospitality, Bill learned that she was actually a vampire. Lorena attacked Bill and drank his blood to the point of death, at which point, he was reborn a vampire himself. Lorena was a cruel maker and brought Bill back to his home so he could have one last look at his family.

Under the control of his maker, Bill spent the next several decades traveling the country with Lorena.

Mainstreaming
In the year 2006, a Japanese firm developed a synthetic blood substitute called Tru Blood. It provided vampires with all of the nourishment of human blood, enabling them the ability to sustain themselves without feeding from unwilling humans. This led to an event known as the Great Revelation, in which vampires across the globe "came out of the coffin" and revealed their existence to the modern world. Though many preferred the old methods, many other vampires welcomed the chance to live out in the open without fear of reprisal. This practice became known as "mainstreaming".

Bill began drinking Tru Blood, though he was sometimes forced to resort to his old feeding practices, preferring to feed off those he deemed evil. Sometimes he would travel into the town of Monroe and "glamor" a prostitute into letting him feed off of her.

Return to Bon Temps
In 2008, Bill learned that his last surviving descendent, Jesse Compton, had passed away, leaving behind the old family plantation house. It was Bill's hope that the pending Vampire Rights Ammendment would pass, granting him property rights, but even though the estate had not legally reverted ownership back to him, he moved into the house anyway.

In the Spring of that year, he entered a local establishment called Merlotte's Bar and Grill. There he met a friendly waitress named Sookie Stackhouse. Unfortunately, he also met two disreputable patrons named Mack and Denise Rattray. The Rattrays were drug dealers who plied their trade by ambushing unsuspecting vampires and draining their blood for sale on the black market. Mack and Denise lured Bill outside where they were able to subdue him with a chain made of silver. They managed to acquire two vials of blood from his body and would have drained him dry had not Sookie Stackhouse come to his rescue. Sookie drove the Rattrays off and removed the silver chain from Bill's arms and legs. Although his old Southern pride disliked the idea of being saved by a woman, Bill was nonetheless grateful. It was then that he learned that his rescuer was a telepath - one who could read the minds of others. As it was however, her power did not appear to work on vampires.

Notes & Trivia

 * In the novel Dead Until Dark, Bill was born in 1840 and was made a vampire in 1870.


 * Bill's favorite Tru Blood flavor is O-negative.