Hrdlicka was born in Wichita, Kansas, in the United States. Her father Richard HrdlickaThe name Hrdlicka is from Czech ‘dove’. A Dictionary of Surnames (OUP, 1988). is from Czechoslovakia and worked as a lawyer, eventually becoming the general counsel of automotive manufacturer Fiat in North America; he was also director of a community bank in Newton, Kansas. Her father had defected from Czechoslovakia while he was in Paris competing as a member of a national hockey team in 1948 at the age of sixteen. After his defection he wrote letters to American teenagers that he had met the previous year as a Scout while attending the World Scout Jamboree in France; the American teenagers raised the funds necessary for him to migrate to the US. Her mother Carol Hrdlicka (née Knott) was from a Kansas ranching family. She has a younger brother named David.
