a private school in Ladue, where he was a member of the football, baseball, and swim teams. During this time he dated Sarah Clarke, who became an actress. His father died when he was 20. After graduation in 1989, Hamm enrolled at the University of Texas. He was a member of the Upsilon chapter of Sigma Nu fraternity, and was arrested for participating in a violent hazing incident during his third year. He later transferred to the University of Missouri. He answered an advertisement from a theater company seeking players for a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream and was cast in the production. Other roles followed, such as Leon Czolgosz in Assassins. Assault incident While a member of Sigma Nu fraternity at the University of Texas, Hamm was arrested for participating in a violent hazing incident in November 1990. He lit a pledge's jeans on fire, shoved his face in the dirt, and struck him with a paddle over his right kidney, before leading the pledge around the fraternity house with a hammer claw around the pledge's testicles. The incident resulted in the fraternity being shut down. The pledge ended up needing medical care, and ultimately withdrew from school. Hamm made a plea deal and completed probation under the terms of a deferred adjudication, allowing him to avoid being convicted of a crime. The charges were dismissed in August 1995 following the completion of his probation. Acting career After graduating in 1993 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English, Hamm returned to his high school to teach eighth-grade acting. One of his students was Ellie Kemper, who became an actress. Years later, Hamm appeared in Kemper's Netflix series Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Early work Hamm, who didn't wish to pursue a "normal career", moved to Los Angeles permanently in 1995. He moved into a house with four other aspiring actors and began working as a waiter while attending auditions. He acted in theater, including as Flavius in a production of Shakespeare's Timon of Athens with the Sacred Fools Theater Company. Looking older than his age, he found it difficult to find work as an actor, despite representation by the William Morris Agency. In 1998, after he failed to get any acting work for three years, William Morris dropped him as a client. He continued working as a waiter and, briefly, worked as a set designer for a softcore pornography