Hampton was born in
Rockford, Illinois, and attended the
University of Illinois, where he studied
chemistry and
journalism. After college, he worked as a radio announcer before serving in the
Army during World War II. Following the war, Hampton settled in
Hollywood, where from 1950 onward he became a prolific screenwriter, scripting or co-writing more than 100 films and television episodes, mainly
B-movies and genre films. In 1964, Hampton, along with co-writer Raphael Hayes, received an
Academy Award nomination for
Best Original Screenplay for
One Potato, Two Potato. During his long career, Hampton worked on television programs including
The Lone Ranger,
The Adventures of Champion,
Perry Mason (and
The New Perry Mason),
Hawaii Five-O,
Lassie,
The Six Million Dollar Man and
Mission: Impossible. Though he wrote films and television shows in many genres—including
film noir (
Motor Patrol),
science fiction (
The Atomic Submarine),
crime fiction (
Detroit 9000),
horror (
The Alligator People),
blaxploitation (
Friday Foster),
mystery (
Lady in the Fog aka
Scotland Yard Inspector), and
westerns (
Gunfighters of Abilene)--, Hampton is probably best remembered for his scripts which addressed race relations, particularly
One Potato, Two Potato (which depicts an
interracial marriage in the 1960s) and his two films with director
Arthur Marks,
Detroit 9000 and
Friday Foster (which starred
Pam Grier,
Yaphet Kotto,
Eartha Kitt,
Scatman Crothers and
Carl Weathers). Fellow screenwriter
C. Jack Lewis recalled in his 2002 book
White Horse, Black Hat, that Hampton used the
pen name "Owen Harris" in his later career—when he was a regular writer for
Columbia Pictures—in an effort to distance himself from his days a "
Poverty Row screenwriter." He remembered Hampton as a writer who "wasn't too proud to work at something else, when necessary", pointing to Hampton's credits as dialogue supervisor, additional dialogue writer, and dialogue director in the 1950s. Hampton died on August 8, 1997, in
Malibu, California. ==Select Credits==