Bill Dauterive

Guillaume Fontaine Delatour "Bill" Dauterive (voiced by Stephen Root) is a character in the animated series King of the Hill. He is a sergeant in the United States Army, and serves as a barber at Fort Blanda near Arlen.

Biography
Bill was born in 1959 to a wealthy Cajun family, and lived in Louisiana until he was six years old. In Episode 66 “A Beer Can Named Desire”, Bill and his friends visited his family’s estate, “Château d’Haute Rive” (“Manor of the High (river) Bank”). Bill is fluent in Cajun French but was unaware of this until he went home to visit and instinctively began to speak it. Later, he learned from his cousin Gilbert and his Aunt Esmé that the husbands of his cousin Violetta and in-laws Rose and Lily have died.

In high school, Bill, nicknamed “The Billdozer”, was Arlen High’s career leader in touchdowns, and held the distinction for over twenty years. He loses the record to running back Ricky Suggs in the fourth season episode “Bills Are Made to Be Broken,” which was inspired by the true story of University of Connecticut basketball star Nykesha Sales. Suggs breaks Bill’s record on a broken leg when the other team sympathetically allows Suggs to score the record-breaking touchdown. This causes Bill a great deal of distress since he feels his crowning achievement in life, that record, was lost unfairly. Since he never finished high school (he joined the US Army in the fall of 1974, before that season ended), Bill is allowed back on the team for one game in order to try for the record. In a game-winning drive, he scores one final touchdown to tie the record with Suggs. He was given the opportunity to break the record again, but refused, saying that he only wanted to make things fair again (he had also broken and bruised several parts of his body during the drive for the goal line).

Bill’s life can be described simply: What football and the Army did not take from him was siphoned off by his trampy ex-wife, Lenore. Bill is little more than the shell of the person he was in high school, and his friends are rather protective of him (with the exception of Dale, who very much enjoys making fun of Bill's faults). Bill is overweight, bald, and socially awkward. He has poor hygiene and even worse self-esteem. He has often been seen openly weeping, displaying inappropriate behaviors such as dancing with a mop and burying porno in the Hills’ backyard, and rooting through trash cans; he has even gone through some suicidal periods. He also got involved with The Harmonoholics, an all-men's singing group that consumed his life and would have destroyed his Army career had it not been for Hank's intervention. In flashbacks and stories, it is implied that Bill was much more popular in his high school days. Lenore mentions that he was king of the homecoming dance on the day they got together.

Bill’s slovenly and overweight condition was briefly thought to have been his involvement as an Army test subject from 1982-1984. The drugs administered in the test were intended to create an elite group of Arctic commandos with walrus-like capabilities that would be deployed in the event of war if the Soviet Union were to invade the United States via Alaska. It was later discovered that Bill was injected with placebos.

Relationships
Bill pined for his ex-wife, Lenore. For many years, Bill held on to the faint hope that the man-eating, selfish Lenore would come back to him before finally coming to terms with his wife’s departure. As a consequence of his divorce, Bill becomes extremely attached to people or objects for whom he has affection, almost to the point of suffocation. In the episode “Bill of Sales,” Peggy learns that Bill can only respect people who are verbally abusive to him. In fact, that is apparently the real reason he has been so attracted to her for so long. Also, because of his low self-esteem, he also has something of a foot fetish, so he is naturally in awe of Peggy's whopping 16 1/2 feet. Bill has such low self-esteem that anyone who's this disgusted by and indifferent to him is someone he wants to be with. When Peggy actually started being nice to him (even to the point of giving him a kiss), he lost interest.

Despite having a pathetic reputation, Bill has had several romantic escapades which include:
 * Kahn’s mother Laoma Souphanousinphone ("Maid in Arlen")
 * Luanne’s psychotic mother Leanne ("Luanne’s's Saga")
 * A woman who had been released from prison ("Dang Ol' Love")
 * Former Texas Governor Ann Richards ("Hank and the Great Glass Elevator")
 * A drunk woman in a car that crashes into a tree. He asks her if she is alright then she insists he goes with her. They drive away after this.
 * The widows of two of his deceased cousins and his flesh-and-blood cousin ("A Beer Can Named Desire"), even though Peggy strongly told him to not sleep with any of them, as one of the three women was related to him
 * A police officer
 * Reverend Karen Stroup
 * Almost had a relationship with a mother of two. However, she became disgusted by him for refusing to take off his stained and shrunken Santa Claus costume by the middle of January.
 * Bill also has a long-standing infatuation with Peggy Hill (though in “Bill of Sales” he was repulsed by a kiss on the cheek from her, probably due to fear that she would subsequently abandon him like all the other women who showed attraction to him); however, his affection is unrequited.

Personality
In spite of his drawbacks, Bill can be inspirational at times. Boomhauer was once pulled out of a deep post-break-up depression by an encouraging speech from the veteran dumpee. Bill also manages, after a very long time, to get over Lenore. At his lowest point, after too many Christmases without her, he has a mental breakdown and "becomes" Lenore, dressing in her clothes and speaking in a falsetto voice. Finally, after running into Lenore one last time, as she returns to him after discovering he's developed a friendship with the ex-Governor of Texas Ann Richards. Under the guidance of Richards, Bill finally accepts that Lenore's no good. In parting, he moons her at a cookout.

Bill is deeply loyal. This is often demonstrated towards his friends, especially Hank Hill, althought this trait often has to struggle with his fears, depression and self-destructive behaviour. He remains loyal for years to his family, ex-wife and the army, despite their poor treatment of him.

Bill can often be surprisingly articulate and worldly. He is more informed on current popular culture and fashion than Hank and his neighbours in the alley.

Bill has a hair fetish. When he cuts Hank’s hair after his barber goes insane, the only payment he asks is that Hank lets him keep the hair. In another episode, Hank mentions that Bill has bags of hair at his house.

Trivia

 * Bill’s full name in French is roughly “William Fountain of the Tower on the High Riverbank.”
 * The character is named after King of the Hill writer and producer Jim Dauterive.
 * Peggy finds Bill repulsive and pathetic. She has accidentally hit him in the head and the crotch with a baseball; has accidentally knocked him off a platform, spraining his arm; and accidentally destroyed an American flag that belonged to him (driving him to tears). She frequently browbeats him for her own gain. Despite all this, she still considers him "a friend."


 * Stephen Root, who provides Bill’s voice, originally auditioned for the role of Dale. Root was not listed in the credits during the time he was simultaneously working on NewsRadio.
 * Bill stands 5' 9 1/2" (1.77 m) in height.
 * Lenore left Bill “in the year of our Lord, 1991.”
 * Bill once claimed to the Arlen High football team that his parents were dead, although they are said to be alive in “A Beer Can Named Desire.”
 * Bill’s name is tattooed in the back of Hank’s head, which is discovered when he accidentally gives the boys head lice and they all have to shave themselves bald. As Bill was getting ready to leave for basic training, he and his friends went out for a night of celebration. A drunken Hank accidentally had a misunderstanding with a group of punk rockers at a bar, and Bill came to his rescue ("Be True to Your Fool").  Hank, in return, decided to have Bill's name tattooed on his chest.  When he drunkenly passed out in the tattoo parlor chair, Boomhauer, knowing that Hank would regret it later, persuaded the artist to tattoo it on Hank's head where it would not be seen. Hank removed the tattoo because he was angry at Bill for giving him lice, but later felt bad about his treatment of Bill and had a hand-scratched "tattoo" put back on his head. Bill was touched by this.
 * Bill seems to have an affinity for dogs. In "The Petriot Act" he takes care of a dog for a soldier who is at war, and in "Hank’s Choice" he takes care of Ladybird for a brief time. During his care of Ladybird, to Hank's dismay, Dale and Boomhauer remark that Ladybird is having a better time with Bill than she has had with Hank over his 10 years of owning her.
 * Bill currently owns a Ford Escort which he bought from Lane Pratley, who also “financed” him pinstripes for it ("Nine Pretty Darn Angry Men"). Bill used to own a truck which was stolen by former girlfriend Leanne Platter, and was presumably never returned.
 * Bill is the last of his lineage other than his cousin Gilbert (pronounced Jil-bear), who is a Southern literary homosexual man.
 * Bill makes surprisingly delicious barbecue recipes, which he has given to Bobby Hill. Gilbert refused to allow Bill to sell the recipes to anyone.
 * Bill once used the name Norman Schwarzkopf as a name to visit the doctor’s office for his toe fungus. The name is most likely a reference for the United States general Norman Schwarzkopf Jr ("Leanne's Saga").
 * Bill was originally going to continue his relationship with Kahn's mother Laoma that began in "Maid In Arlen" into the next season, but the producers decided to return Bill to his lonely, pathetic single existence. Laoma's exit from the show was never mentioned.
 * The name of Bill's ex, Lenore, is a reference to the Edgar Allan Poe narrative poem "The Raven", in which the narrator repeatedly mentions his "lost Lenore".
 * Bill, being from Louisiana, speaks Cajun-French fluently.