About this time he made his first theatrical appearance. With young Gorky he was a supernumerary in Rubenstein's "Der Daemon," (The Demon).
At seventeen, Chaliapine joined a troupe of nomadic players, and with them wandered up and down the Caucasus until the troupe was stranded in Baku. Then he worked as a railway porter and sang before the cetes at night. After much. suffering and hardship, he made his way on foot to Tiflis, Tt was in 1892, in Titis, then beginning to respond to Russian influence, and which boasted a large conservatory, that one night the then famous singer Ussatoff passed Chaliapine as he stood before a restaurant chanting a Tartar folk song. Ussatoff was- impressed and eventually took Fim under his care. fail, he would have no hesitation in going on the films, for many huge salaries had been' offered him by Hollywood. This was not surprising for his acting was almost in the same class as his singing.
He published his autobiography in 1927 and in 1932 he sued the Soviet Government for 2,000,000 francs damages for unlawfully publishing certain portions he had submitted to Maxim Gorky for his private perusal. He was ultimately awarded £100 damages by the Paris Tribehal, confirmed by the Appeal Court which stated that the Soviet edition had deformed the original for political purposes.
He recorded a full and comprehensive list of his successes for the gramophone.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.