Rodbell was born on December 1, 1925 in Baltimore, Maryland. He attended a special Baltimore high school that accepted boys from all over the city and prepared them to enter college as sophomores. He entered Johns Hopkins University in 1943, pursuing his interest in chemistry. Not long after entering the university, Rodbell became bored with classes and felt (being Jewish) compelled to combat Hitler's armies. He spent the balance of World War II serving in the Navy, primarily in the South Pacific.

Rodbell returned to Johns Hopkins and received a B.A. in 1949. That same year he met his future wife, Barbara Lederman, a ballet dancer from Holland who had lost her family in the Auschwitz concentration camp. They married a year later, and Rodbell credits his wife for immersing him the world of the arts. Rodbell and his new wife traveled to Seattle, where Rodbell began his graduate studies in...