Coolidge was born in Prague. Her grandfather, František Hašek was Owner and President of the Hašek Bank and Prague Stock Exchange President who was assassinated by the Nazis on June 5, 1942 for refusing to sell to the Nazis his majority share in Melantrich, a Czech publishing company. In January 1948 her father, Josef Hašek, was invited to the United States to recommend an expansion of trade relations between the United States and Czechoslovakia. He remained in the U.S. after the 1948 Communist coup d'état.