Slatkin was born in St. Louis, Missouri to a Jewish family originally named Zlotkin (though it is not certain)[1] from areas of the Russian Empire now in Ukraine.
He began working professionally at the age of ten and won a scholarship to the Curtis Institute, where he studied violin with Efrem Zimbalist and conducting with Fritz Reiner.
He settled in Los Angeles and accepted the post of concertmaster for Twentieth Century Fox Studios, performing numerous violin solos in motion pictures such as How Green Was My Valley and How to Marry a Millionaire.
In 1939 he founded the highly acclaimed Hollywood String Quartet, which produced over 21 albums for Capitol Records and toured the United States, Europe, Australia and New Zealand, including a special appearance in 1957 for the Edinburgh Festival.
In 1995, the Hollywood Quartet won the London Grammaphone award for their recording of Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht and Schubert’s Quintet in C Major.