[2] Yelizaveta Nikolayevna Kedrova was born in Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire, the youngest of three children.

Her father, Nikolay Kedrov Sr. (1871–1940), was a singer and composer, a creator of the first Russian male quartet to perform liturgical chants.

Her mother, Sofia Gladkaya (ru: Софья Николаевна Гладкая; 1874–1965), was a singer at the Mariinsky Theatre and a teacher at the Conservatoire de Paris.

In 1928, they moved to France, where Kedrova's mother taught at the Conservatoire de Paris, and her father again recreated Quatuor Kedroff.

Kedrova then appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's film Torn Curtain (1966), playing the role of Countess Kuchinska, a Polish noblewoman in East Berlin who is desperate to emigrate to the United States.