Lion Izmaylov

Lion Izmaylov trained as an engineer before he turned to humour. After an aviation technical school he studied at the Moscow Aviation Institute and graduated in 1967 as a design engineer. His writing first appeared in Literaturnaya Gazeta in 1969, where he became a permanent author of the Club of 12 Chairs column, and in 1970 he made writing his profession. Between 1973 and 1975 he also studied screenwriting in the workshop of Georgy Danelia.

In 1979, the year he joined the USSR Writers' Union, he began reading his own monologues on stage. Those texts travelled far beyond his own performances: apart from Gennady Khazanov, Yevgeny Petrosyan and Vladimir Vinokur, they were taken up by Svetlana Rozhkova, Efim Shifrin and Lev Leshchenko. He also hosted a number of television programmes and wrote songs for the composer Alexander Dobronravov.