[1] At the age of three, he lost his father who died in the war[2] (deputy commander of the battery of the 213th cannon-artillery regiment, Lieutenant Polyak was missing in April 1943), and Lion's upbringing lay on the shoulders of the mother.

[2] Within the walls of the institute he began to engage in amateur activities, where the pseudonym Izmailov was invented (which meant from MAI, then the letter and was replaced by i[2][3]).

Published in 1969 in Literaturnaya Gazeta, since then he has been the permanent author of the Club of 12 Chairs column.

[3] Izmailov's monologues are performed by such artists as Gennady Khazanov, Yevgeny Petrosyan, Jan Arlazorov, Svetlana Rozhkova, Efim Shifrin, Vladimir Vinokur, Lev Leshchenko and many others.

Lion Izmailov writes several songs by the singer and composer Alexander Dobronravov.