Tobe was born on January 25, 1943 in Austin, Texas, and grew up there. He became fascinated with filming as early as the age of three, and when only nine years old, he used his father's 8mm camera to make a film. While still a young teenager, he completed his first film, in 1959, a short film with sound called "The Abyss", and followed that with other short films such as "The Heisters". Since he had started filming as a hobby, he soon decided to make a career of it and began making commericials and industrial films. By 1968, he had directed a PBS documentary about the famous trio of folk singers "Peter, Paul and Mary." Tobe also taught film technique at the University of Texas. His first feature film for which he was producer, screenwriter and director, was called "Eggshells" aka "An American Freak Odyssey", a look at the gradual decline of the peace movement, and it won a prize at the Atlanta Film Festival, though it did not find a distributor. Tobe also appeared as an actor in the film "The Windsplitter" in 1971.

Tobe made his film breakthrough in 1974 with a stomach churning, nightmarish film called "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre". Although it is a terrifying film about a family of degenerate cannibals, it actually has shows very little blood or gruesome scenes. The film used a muted color technique and use of moving cameras to generate an intense feeling of terror and anticipation with the viewers. The film was made for less than $160,000, but may have grossed as much as $50,000,000, though Tobe himself only saw a small amount of the profits. However, he had established his name a director of first rate horror. This website author remembers being scared to watch some of the scenes and shielding his eyes several times during the film. The film was honored by the Cannes Film Festival and was ;ater inducted into the Horror Hall of Fame.

His next film was called "Eaten Alive" but it had been recut by the producers and completely changed Tobe's concept of the film. He worked on two projects that he left uncompleted- :The Dark (1979) and "Venom" (1981), and he completed the Stephen King TV miniseries "Salem's Lot" in 1979, which has been widely critically acclaimed, and Stephen King himself thinks it is one of the best film productions of one of his novels. His next horror film was "The Funhouse" in 1981 and then he was hired by Steven Spielberg to direct a big budget horror film called "Poltergeist." Tobe then branched off into making music videos for the British rock star, Billy Idol, and filmed the video "Dancing With Myself". By 1984 he agreed to film three pictures for Cannon Pictures, the first was the sci-fi vampire film "Lifeforce" in 1985, and followed that with a remake of the 1953 camp classic "Invaders From Mars" in 1986. His third film was a sequel to his first horror masterpiece, called "the Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2" in 1986, but the result was not critically acclaimed. His next film was "Spontaneous Combustion" in 1989, which quickly went to video, but he followed this film with an Israeli film entitled "Tobe Hooper's Night Terrors" in 1992 and then another Stephen King film "The Mangler" in 1995.

Tobe began doing television films, an episode of Tales from the Crypt in 1989, a TV series in 1986 called "Freddy's Nightmares", the TV series Nowhere Man in 1995, Dark Skies in 1996, and Perversions of Science in 1997. In 1999 he again worked with the actress Amanda Plummer, who had appeared briefly in "Dark Skies", when she acted in his Showtime TV 1999 movie "The Apartment Complex". Amanda had seen his first film when she was very young woman and had said about it "it just blew my mind".

Tobe's son from his first marriage is the film sound editor William (Bill) Hooper who has worked on many films including American Pie 2. Tobe and Amanda Plummer were a couple for about 3 years, and were seen together at many premieres and film events, but their relationship appears to have ended.. Tobe is currently writing a screenplay for a film which will he will direct called 'Brew'.