Following his service, he performed in summer stock in Texas and then moved to New York City, where he was given his first film role, in the Academy Award-nominated short subject The Cliffdwellers.

His next role was as the lead character in a May 1963 Gunsmoke episode entitled "Jeb", featuring his friend and series regular Burt Reynolds.

Hampton returned to Gunsmoke later that year in "Pa Hack’s Brood" (S9E13), again as a character named Jeb, although Marshal Dillon makes no reference in this episode to the previous appearance.

In 1964, he was cast as publisher William Randolph Hearst in the episode "The Paper Dynasty" of the television series Death Valley Days.

[3] Hampton is known for his roles in ABC's F Troop(1965-1967) as Hannibal Dobbs, the incompetent bugler; CBS's The Doris Day Show (1968 until March 1973) as Leroy, the handyman; Robert Aldrich's The Longest Yard (1974); Attack on Terror: The FBI vs. the Ku Klux Klan (1975); Teen Wolf (1985); the Teen Wolf television series (1986 to 1989); Police Academy 5: Assignment Miami Beach (1988); and Sling Blade (1996).