Ismayil Daghistanli was born on 6 January 1907 in Zərnə village of Qakh District into an Rutul family. He began his stage career in 1925 in the drama society under the Nukha Central Workers 'and Peasants' Club. He studied at Baku Theater College from 1926 to 1930. From 1927 he also performed on the stage of the Drama Theater as an practitioner actor. From 1930 he worked intermittently at Azerbaijan National Drama Theatre, in 1936–1937 at Yerevan Drama Theater, and was a director and actor of the Azerbaijani theater he organized in Derbent in 1932–1933.[3]
Since 1938, he had created a series of classic characters on the stage of Azerbaijan National Drama Theatre. He became famous on the Azerbaijani stage as the first performer of the roles of V. I. Lenin. In the last years of his life he worked as the head of the department at Azerbaijan Institute of Arts. He had published several books about actors and theater.
