Born Edward Sedan in New York City, his mother was a Broadway theatre fashion designer and his father an orchestra conductor.

Sedan returned to Broadway, performing in several different shows during the first half of the 1940s and in the 1950s began a sequence of guest roles in television series such as I Love Lucy, where he played the chef at a Parisian restaurant in "Paris at Last" (episode 145),[3] The Jack Benny Program, and The Tab Hunter Show.

He was also seen as the train conductor in the film Young Frankenstein (1974), and in bit parts in two other Gene Wilder pictures.

[4] Sedan struggled to be accepted as an actor in radio, gaining his first role after six months of unsuccessful auditions, even though by then he had acted in films for 22 years.

His initial broadcasting role came in an episode of Big Town when his voice best suited a specific part in the program.