Ted Peshak was born Theodore Joseph Peshak on Dec. 22, 1917, in Plymouth, Iowa. He was the house director for Coronet Instructional Media, a major producer of the genre known as "classroom training films", in the 1940s and 1950s. Many of the actors appearing in his films were his family, friends and neighbors from Libertyville, IL, where he lived.

He was trained as a journalist at the University of Iowa and was a photographer during his Army service during World War II, and also photographed and directed training films during his army hitch. After working at a variety of jobs, including an advertising agency, he went to work for Coronet as a director, his debut there being Shy Guy (1947) (its leading man was future Bewitched (1964) star Dick York). He eventually left Coronet and started his own company, Peshak Films, and directed industrial films for a variety of clients, including McDonald's and the American Health Care Association. He left the filmmaking business in the 1960s and became a successful real-estate developer in Illinois.

He died in Lake Forest, IL, on Oct. 9, 2006, of colon cancer.