 Lew Kowarski was born in Saint Petersburg to Nicholas Kowarski, a businessman and the Ukrainian singer Olga Vlassenko.Following the Bolshevik Revolution, when Lew was 12 years old, his family fled west under adventurous circumstances and settled in Vilnius (then in Poland).During his youth, Lew was a talented musician and considered a music career; however, his fingers grew too large for the keyboard.