David Hampton
American con-artist, imposter
David Hampton (April 28, 1964 – July 18, 2003) was an American con artist and robber who became famous in the 1980s after he convinced a group of wealthy Manhattanites to give him money, food, and shelter under the pretense that he was the son of Sidney Poitier. David Hampton's story became the inspiration for a play titled Six Degrees of Separation, which was adapted for a film of the same name. David Hampton died of AIDS-related complications in 2003.
Background
Hampton was born in Buffalo, New York, and was the eldest son of an attorney. He moved to New York City in 1981 and stumbled upon his now-famous ruse in 1983 when he and another man were attempting to gain entry into Studio 54. After the club denied Hampton and his partner entry, Hampton's partner decided to pose as Gregory Peck's son while Hampton assumed the identity of Sidney Poitier's son. They were ushered in as celebrities. Thereafter, Hampton adopted the persona of "David Poitier" to obtain free meals in restaurants. He also persuaded at least a dozen well-off people to give him shelter and money, including Melanie Griffith, Gary Sinise, Calvin Klein, John Jay Iselin, the president of WNET; Osborn Elliott, the dean of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism; Leonard Bernstein, and a Manhattan urologist. Hampton used different lies to fool his victims; he convinced some that he was an acquaintance of their children, some that he had just missed a plane to Los Angeles with his luggage still on it, and some that his belongings had been stolen in a mugging.
“David Hampton” enters the record as american con-artist, imposter. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what David, Hampton and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“David Hampton” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, David, Hampton and American provides the most credible route into that argument.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5234688. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1964, 2003, 1981 and 1983.
A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “David Hampton” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.