[2][4] Actor of the Moscow Theater of Miniatures under the leadership of Mikhail Zhvanetsky.

[5] Roman Kartsev was born in Odessa to Sura-Lea (in life as Sonia) Ruvinovna Fuksman and Antshel Zelmanovich Katz.

The maternal grandfather, after whom the artist was named, was a synagogue cantor.

Before the war, Roman lived with his parents in Tiraspol, where in 1939–1941 his father was a striker for the Tiraspol team in the second league of the USSR Football Championship.

During the Great Patriotic War, together with his mother and brother was in evacuation in Omsk; the grandparents who remained in Odessa died.