Sergey Yuryevich Yursky was born in Leningrad on 16 March, 1935. From 1951 to 1955 he was a student of the law department of the Leningrad University. Then he entered the Leningrad Theatre Institute. As a second-year student in 1957 he already played on stage of the Gorky Bolshoi Drama Theater in the performances In Search of Pleasure and Señor Mario is Writing a Comedy.

In 1959 Yursky graduated from the Theatre Institute.  The same year he became an actor and an a stage director of the Moscow Mossovet Theater. There Yursky played Adam in Divine Comedy (1962), Chatsky in Wit Works Woe (1962), Dzhivola in Arturo Ui's Career (1963), Tuzenbakh in Three Sisters (1965), Aesop in The Fox and Grapes (1968), Henry IV in King Henry IV (1969), and Polezhaev in Uneasy Old Age (1970).  Besides, Sergey Yursky became the stage director of the performances Truth is Good but Happiness Is Better (1980), Ornifl, or a Little Draft (1986), and others.

In 1992 he created Artel of Actors of Sergey Yursky Theater in Moscow, where he staged the play Gamblers XXI (1992), and also played in the performances The King Dies (1992), After Rehearsal (1996) and Marriage (1997). For his role of Zhevakin in The Marriage he got the Gold Mask award.

No less known are Sergey Yursky's roles in the movies Man from Nowhere (1961), Time, Forward! (1966), The Golden Calf (1968), Meeting Place Can't be Changed (1979) and many others.