Short answers, pulled from the story.
Leonid Gaidai was a Soviet comedy film director, screenwriter, and actor who lived from the 30th of January 1923 to the 19th of November 1993. He has been described as "the king of Soviet comedy," and between 1961 and 1975 directed nine films that became acknowledged Russian classics, each selling between 20 and 76 million tickets.
The Diamond Arm, released in 1968, sold 76.7 million tickets in the Soviet Union alone, making it the third highest-grossing Soviet film ever made. In a 1995 RTR survey, audiences voted it the best comedy ever made.
ViNiMor was a nickname for the comic trio of characters Coward, Fool, and Pro, played by Georgy Vitsin, Yuri Nikulin, and Yevgeny Morgunov respectively. Gaidai introduced them in the 1961 short film collection Absolutely Seriously, and they appeared together through Kidnapping, Caucasian Style in 1966 before Gaidai disbanded the trio following a falling-out with Morgunov.
Gaidai was enrolled in the Red Army in February 1942 and served in military intelligence, including a period in Mongolia. He was awarded the Medal "For Battle Merit" on the 20th of December 1942 for his actions at Yenkino village, and was severely wounded by a land mine on the 20th of March 1943, spending nine months in military hospitals before being discharged as war-disabled in January 1944.
Gaidai received a nomination for best short film at the 1961 Cannes Film Festival for Dog Barbos and Unusual Cross. He also won the Grand Prix Wawel Silver Dragon at the Krakow Film Festival in Poland in 1965 for the segment "Deja vu" in Operation Y and Shurik's Other Adventures.
Gaidai was born on the 30th of January 1923 in Svobodny, Amur Oblast, in Russia's Far East, where a statue now commemorates him. He died in Moscow on the 19th of November 1993 and was buried at the Kuntsevo Cemetery.