Short answers, pulled from the story.
Leonid Iovich Gaidai was born on the 30th of January 1923 in Svobodny, a town located in the Amur Oblast. His family settled in this region after his father was sentenced to hard labor for revolutionary activity.
On the 1st of December 1942, Leonid Gaidai received the Medal For Battle Merit after killing three German soldiers during the battle for Yenkino village. He served in the Red Army from February 1942 until he returned home as a war-disabled veteran in January 1944 following severe injuries from a land mine.
The comic trio known as ViNiMor consisted of Georgy Vitsin, Yuri Nikulin, and Yevgeny Morgunov who played the characters Coward, Fool, and Pro respectively. This group appeared together in films such as Absolutely Seriously released in 1961 and Moonshiners also released in 1961.
Leonid Gaidai's film The Diamond Arm sold 76.7 million tickets within Soviet borders alone upon its release in 1968. This figure made it the third highest-grossing Soviet film ever produced at that time.
Leonid Iovich Gaidai died in Moscow on the 19th of November 1993. He was subsequently buried at the Kuntsevo Cemetery after his death.