information:classification, linguistic:paraphrasing, information:highlighting, linguistic:voice_change
1955-1963: Beginnings in theatre, cinema, and music

In 1955, Vladimir enrolled into the Moscow State University of Civil Engineering, but dropped out after just one year to pursue an acting career. In June 1956 he joined Boris Vershilov's class at the Moscow Art Theatre School. There he met the third-year student Iza Zhukova, who four years later would become his wife. The two soon settled in a common room at the Meschanskaya flat, where their space was sectioned off by a folding screen. It was also at the MAT School that Vysotsky met Bulat Okudzhava, who at this point was already a popular underground bard. He was even more impressed by his Russian literature teacher, Andrey Sinyavsky, who often invited students to his home to stage improvised disputes and concerts.

In 1958, Vysotsky got his first role at the Moscow Art Theatre: that of Porfiry Petrovich in Crime and Punishment.

In 1959 he was cast in his first cinema role, that of the student Petya in Female Age-Mates.

On 20 June 1960, Vysotsky graduated from the MAT School. He soon joined the Moscow Pushkin Drama Theatre, then led by Boris Ravenskikh, where he spent almost three troubled years (with intervals). His time at the theatre was marred by numerous administrative sanctions for "lack of discipline" and occasional drunken sprees, which were primarily a reaction to the lack of serious roles and his inability to realize his artistic potential.

In 1961 and 1962 Vysotsky appeared in the films Dima Gorin's Career and 713 Requests Permission to Land, respectively. Both roles required him to be beaten up on screen, in the first case by Aleksandr Demyanenko. "That was the way cinema greeted me," Vysotsky joked later.

In 1961 Vysotsky also wrote his first proper song, called "Tatuirovka" ("Tattoo"), starting a long and colorful cycle of artfully stylized criminal underworld romantic stories, full of undercurrents and witty social comments.

In 1962 he did a short stint at the Moscow Theater of Miniatures, then directed by Vladimir Polyakov, which ended with his being fired. The official reason given was "for total lack of а sense of humour."

In June 1963, while shooting Penalty Kick (dir. Veniamin Dorman) Vysotsky used the Gorky Film Studio to record an hour-long reel-to-reel cassette of his own songs. Copies of it quickly spread, and Vysotsky's name became known in Moscow and elsewhere, though many of the songs were referred to as being either folk music or anonymous. Only several months later, chess grandmaster Mikhail Tal was heard praising the author of "Bolshoy Karetny," and Anna Akhmatova (in conversation with Joseph Brodsky) quoted from Vysotsky's "Ya byl dushoj durnogo obshhestva" ("I Was the Soul of a Bad Company"), apparently taking it for a brilliant piece of anonymous street folklore.