Hammer was a basketball player at the
University of Southern California and started all 34 games for the
1953–54 USC Trojans men's basketball team that made the Final Four of the
1954 NCAA basketball tournament. He competed in
volleyball at the 1964 Summer Olympics. As an actor, he played Captain Richard "Dick" Hammer in the television series
Emergency! but left the show during the 1972 first season after ten episodes. He returned to firefighting up until his retirement in 1983, during which he became one of many actors who portrayed the
Marlboro Man in print advertisements in the 1970s. This was first reported by Mark Flora of EBA News. ==Personal life==