Guru Dutt left home for the first time to join an office as a telephone operator at a Lever Brothers factory in Kolkata. But very soon he left the job, and joined his parents in Mumbai in 1944. However, his uncle brought him a job with a three-year contract with the Prabhat Film Company in Pune in 1944. This once premier film-producing centre once experienced the departure of its best talent, V. Shantaram, who had by then launched his own Kala Mandir. It was in this film company, where Guru Dutt met two people who remained his eternal friends - actors Rehman and Dev Anand.

The dance maestro Uday Shankar trained Guru Dutt after finishing his basic education in Calcutta. Guru Dutt's association with film industry began with his joining the Prabhat Studios. This multi talented personality began his career as a choreographer in Hum ek Hain (1946), which ironically was also the first film of his eminent actor director friend Dev Anand. Later, Guru Dutt joined Bombay Talkies.

Guru Dutt made his debut on the small screen by acting in a small role as Sri Krishna in Chand in 1944. In 1945, he acted and also assisted director Vishram Bedekar in film Lakhrani, and in 1946 he worked as an assistant director and did the choreography for dances in P. L. Santoshi's film, Hum Ek Hain. This contract ended in 1947, but his mother contacted many people to get him a job as a freelance assistant with Baburao Pai, the CEO of the Prabhat Film Company and Studio. However, after this employment for almost ten months, Guru Dutt was unemployed and lived with his family at Matunga, Mumbai. During this time, Guru Dutt started to write randomly and developed a flair for writing in English. He wrote short stories for The Illustrated Weekly of India, which is a local weekly English magazine. During this time Guru Dutt wrote the script for the almost autobiographical film Pyaasa (Hindi: the thirsty one). Its original name given to this script was Kashmakash (Hindi: struggle) and later it was changed to Pyaasa.

Guru Dutt is undoubtedly one of the most multi faceted personalities the Indian Film Industry has ever witnessed. Later with the passage of time, Guru Dutt emerged as probably the best choreographer, actor, producer as well as a director of his era. Guru Dutt is however most acclaimed as a director.