Yet he dreamed of acting, just like his elder half-brother who served as a comedy actor in the local theatre and died very young, which made his mother to believe that it was a bad sign; she asked the recruiting manager to keep her son's documents and don't let him leave.

[4] In 1954 a Moscow Art Theatre actor Mikhail Zimin who had previously studied with Yevstigneyev returned for him and asked to join the Nemirovich-Danchenko School-Studio at MKhAT.

[3][4] In 1957 a number of young MAT actors including Yevgeny Yevstigneyev and his close friend Oleg Yefremov founded the Sovremennik Theatre where he served till 1970.

It turned a big hit and gave a great push to his successful movie career which lasted for 35 years and resulted in over 100 roles.

He also starred in an epic historical mini-series Yermak (released posthumously in 1996) as Ivan the Terrible which became his last role.

[3] In 1991 Nikolai Gubenko, at the time a Soviet Ministry of Culture, contacted a famous British cardiologist Thomas Lewis and sent Yevstigneyev and his wife to London.

This greatly affected Yevstigneyev, and in five minutes he survived another heart attack which led to coma and his death in several hours.