Glaser was born on September 21, 1926 in Cleveland, Ohio. He studied at Case Western University and at the California Institute of Technology. Glaser was married to Ruth Bonnie Thompson from 1960 until they divorced in c. 1970. Then he was married to Lynn Bercovitz from 1975 until his death in 2013. Glaser died on February 28, 2013 in his home in Berkeley, California from natural causes, aged 86.