Raised in Dallas, Texas, James Hampton attended John H. Reagan Elementary, N.R. Crozier Technical High School and the University of North Texas (Theatre Arts Major). He studied acting with Michael Howard in New York and Leonard Nimoy in Los Angeles. He worked with Baruch Lumet at Knox Street Theatre in Dallas and did summer stock at Casa Manana in Fort Worth (1961). He performed off-Broadway in "Easy Does It" with Tom Poston and Elizabeth Allen, and toured with Burt Reynolds in "Rainmaker". He starred in "Tender Trap" with Reynolds at Arlington Park Theatre in Chicago and played the title role in "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter" at the same theatre with Mamie Van Doren and Rick Jason. Onscreen he has played in films as diverse as The Longest Yard and Teen Wolf, and is probably best remembered as the eager but inept bugler Pvt. Hannibal Dobbs in the classic sitcom F Troop.


A co-star in the sitcom "F-Troop" in the 60s, he was in a real life F-Troop of the 6th Armored Cavalry at Fort Knox in the late '50s. In reality, Hampton's character, Bugler Hanibal Dobbs should not have been a part of F -Troop. Immediately following the Civil War, Dobbs, being a Southerner, would have been ineligible for service in the United States Army. His brother Dan was a rodeo clown.