Leslie Louis Szarvas was born April 25, 1930, in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. He was the sixth and youngest child of Paul and Antonio Szarvas.

Leslie attended River Rough High School in nearby Detroit and then transferred to Wayne University where he studied music and drama. When his family moved to the greater Los Angeles area of Altadena, he finished his schooling at the Pasadena Playhouse and Pierce College.

After serving in the U.S. Army in Korea, Leslie returned to Los Angeles where he obtained employment with Lockheed Aircraft Corporation in Burbank. While employed at Lockheed, Leslie continued his hobby of collecting records and particularly out-of-date and rare records which he hoped to make available to the public.

His collection continued to grow so that he constructed a separate building that housed from 2 to 2.5 million records.

While employed at Lockheed, Leslie kept his interest in music and drama active by writing plays, songs, and directing thespian activities for the company. This collection consists of sheet music written by Leslie.

After twelve years there, Leslie left Lockheed and formed his own business known as “Discontinued Records." His business tagline was, “While you were looking for out-of-print records, you should have been looking for us!” Leslie wrote the music for two well-known children’s television shows, "H.R. Pufnstuf" and "Lidsville." He also composed music for Krofft Puppet shows.

His business flourished until his death in November, 1988. “Discontinued Records” supplied records to people all over the world and was a source of rental records to television and movie studios in the Los Angeles area.