Joseph Theodore "Ted" Hallock was born in Los Angeles, California, in 1921. His family came to Portland, Oregon, in 1927. He began working in broadcasting while still in high school when his cousin, Homer Welch, got him a job in sound effects at KGW radio. He studied law at the University of Oregon, but joined the Air Force shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. He and Muriel Myers married before his deployment. They divorced soon after he returned from the war in 1945. Shortly thereafter, he met Phyllis Natwick at a fundraiser, and they married in 1946. He gave up his plans to study law and went into journalism instead. He won several awards for his broadcasting work, including a Peabody. His work in journalism took him to England and Russia during the 1950s. In 1959, he founded an advertising agency, the Hallock Agency. He represented Multnomah County in the Oregon State Senate as a Democrat from 1963 to 1982. In 1968, he divorced again; he and Jackie Hull were married soon after. From 1988 to 1994, he was a member of the Northwest Power Planning Council. Hallock died in 2006.