Leonid Aleksandrovich Zakharov was born in 1928 in Telche, Orel Region. He studied at the Orel Art College from 1944 to 1950, and at the Kharkov Art-Theater Institute in the Ukraine from 1950 to 1956. In 1956 he came to Bryansk and worked at the Bryansk Drama Theater as a theater artist for five years.