Thomas William Lawson McCall, commonly known as Tom McCall, was born in Egypt, Massachusetts, and grew up on a ranch near Prineville, Oregon. He graduated from the University of Oregon in 1936 with a degree in journalism, and worked in a variety of journalism positions from the 1930s to 1960s, including as a radio news host and a television commentator and documentarian. He served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. In 1954, McCall unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. House of Representatives as a Republican. In 1964, he successfully ran for Oregon secretary of state, and two years later was elected governor of Oregon. He was reelected in 1970.

As governor, McCall was noted for activism in environmental and conservation legislation. He supported the protection of Oregon's beaches; established the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality; led the successful fight for the Oregon Bottle Bill, the U.S.'s first mandatory container deposit law; and championed Senate Bill 100, which established statewide goals for land use planning and development.

After leaving office in 1975 due to term limits, McCall wrote a newspaper column and worked as a news analyst for KATU television in Portland. He ran for governor again in 1978, but lost the Republican primary to Victor Atiyeh. In 1982, despite suffering from terminal cancer, McCall successfully lobbied against Ballot Measure 6, which would have overturned the land-use planning legislation that he had supported.

McCall married Audrey Owen (1915-2007) in 1939. The couple had two sons: Samuel Walker McCall III, and Thomas "Tad" McCall. Tom McCall died on January 8, 1983.