[5] Born in San Antonio, Texas to David Locke Britton and Thelma Hallie Bowles,[2] he grew up in Oakland, California[6][7] when his mother remarried to Walter H. Fieberling during January 1925.

[13] He repeated the triumph in August 1939, this time taking the State AAU heavyweight title by knocking out 6' 6" 225 lb.

[4] Sports columnist Eddie Muller said years after Fieberling left the ring that "he didn't amount to much because he never took the game too seriously".

[29] Fieberling was a private at a US Marine Corps recruit depot during January 1943,[30] making the rank of sergeant by November 1943.

[31] He took part in the landings on Saipan and Tinian,[26][32] finishing the war as a Staff Sergeant with the 18th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Battalion.

[34] During filming of a boxing scene Kirkwood threw the wrong choreographed punch and Fieberling accidentally kayoed him.

The picture included the entirety of a four-round bout between star Robert Ryan, portraying a second-rate pug on the skids, and Fieberling, playing a mob-controlled fighter.

He gave me a black eye, mussed up my nose, and made me glad I didn't follow boxing as a profession.

[4] In March 1950 Fieberling made his earliest known television appearance, when he and his then wife along with three other couples guested on The Frank Webb Show, a local program on KFI-TV Channel 9 in Los Angeles.

[43] By 1952 he decided to adopt the stage name "Hal Baylor" as he felt it was "easier to spell and pronounce than Fieberling".

[45] Oakland sportswriter Alan Ward said of Baylor in late 1957: "He works constantly and remuneratively in movies and television...

[46] From 1959 he made television commercials for Kellogg's OK breakfast cereal as Big Otis the Scotsman until he was replaced by Yogi Bear.

[47] Baylor's last film performances came in 1975, with three movies released that year: A Boy and His Dog, Cornbread, Earl and Me, and Hustle.

"He gave me a sound thrashing," Hal said deadpan.” —Interview in Anaheim Bulletin[5] He was the founder and longtime president of a charitable organization called The Spotlighters,[fn 3] consisting of show business personalties who raised money for the San Fernando Valley Youth Center.

[54] While a sergeant in the USMC, stationed in San Diego, Fieberling married Margaret Jeanne MacLean in Los Angeles, on November 27, 1943.