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Seaga or Edy, as he is popularly known to Jamaicans here and abroad, was born Edward Phillip George Seaga on May 28, 1930. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts to Jamaican parents Erna and Phillip George who are of Lebanese and Scottish descent. He was only three (3) years old when he came to Jamaica. Erna and Phillip Seaga baptised their son in Kingston's Anglican Parish Church on December 5, 1930. Young Seaga attended primary schools in Kingston and St. James before continuing his secondary education at Wolmer's High School for Boys, in Kingston then he later attended Harvard University, and graduated in 1952.

In 1959 at the age of 29, He entered politics as the youngest member of the appointed Legislative Council, the upper house of the pre-independence legislature, and made his mark in one of his first speeches as a legislator on the theme of 'The Haves and Have Nots'. He was also a record producer during the 1960s and owned and operated the West Indies Records Limited (WIRL) label. He later sold his company to Byron Lee, who changed the name to Dynamic Sounds.

Seaga wanted to focus on his political career and was elected to parliament in 1962, he was Minister of Welfare and Development from 1962-1967, Finance Minister 1967-72 and became leader of the conservative Jamaican Labor party (JLP) in 1974 where he served as leader of the opposition from 1974 to 1980. In 1980 when the JLP won the elections, he became the Prime Minister of Jamaica from 1980 to 1989. He then served as leader of the opposition again from 1989 until January 2005 after repeated lose at the polls.

In 1965, Seaga was married to the former Miss Jamaica World 1964, Marie "Mitsy" Constantine.

The couple raised three children together, Anabella, Andrew and Christoper and divorced in 1996 after thirty years of marriage due to irreconcilable differences. He later married Carla Vendryes, thirty years his junior who then gave birth to their daughter, Gabrielle, in 2002, making him a father for the fourth time, at the age of 72.

Seaga remained leader of the Jamaica Labour Party until January 2005. He came very close to winning the 2002 election, but stepped down as party chief in 2005 at the age of 74, to take up an academic post as a Senior Research Fellow at the University of the West Indies in Mona.

His retirement from political life marked the end of Jamaica's founding generation in active politics; he was the last serving politician to have entered public life before Jamaica received Independence.

Though he is not a Jamaican by birth, it was evident that he loved Jamaica and it's people. The same was extended to him more so in the last days of his political reign as his speech which was aired on local television brought tears to many eyes on both political sides.