Edward Zigler was born on 1 March 1930 in Kansas City, Missouri, USA. He was married to Bernice A. Gorelick. He died on 7 February 2019 in North Haven, Connecticut, USA.
After military service during the Korean War, he graduated from what is now the University of Missouri at Kansas City. He received a doctorate in psychology from the University of Texas at Austin in 1958, and joined the Yale faculty a year later.