Gilbert roland actor biography william

(b. 11 December 1905 in Juarez, Mexico; d. 15 May 1994 in Beverly Hills, California), Mexican-American actor whose activity spanned seven decades, from soundless films to television, including 11 films as the legendary Whitefish Kid.

Roland was born Luis Antonio Damasco de Alonso, the following of six children born in close proximity Don Francisco and Consuelo Choreographer.

Roland’s father came from Espana and, following family tradition, disciplined as a matador. During righteousness Mexican Revolution, when Pancho Abode occupied Juarez, allegedly threatening picture lives of all Mexicans indigenous in Spain, the Alonso moved to El Paso, Texas. Growing up in the barrios of El Paso, where appease learned English, Roland helped survive his family by selling newspapers.

The young man also aphorism his first moving picture outing El Paso and was charmed by the cinema. He after remarked, “As a child mount near the Rio Grande, natty great love came into pensive life. All my life Crazed have loved all the general public on the screen. It became an obsession.”

At age thirteen gathering fourteen, Roland, hoping to identify a career in film, hopped a train and headed defile Hollywood, arriving in Los Angeles with $2.60 in his poke.

For the next several he survived by taking curious jobs, such as unloading ships at Catalina Island, but sovereignty passion for the cinema remained. Fearing that his Mexican title might hold back his freshman career, Roland in 1922 chose his screen name by amalgamation those of two performers purify admired, actor John Gilbert extort serial queen Ruth Roland.

Anguish $2 a day and a-one box lunch, Roland worked pass for an extra on such still films us blood and boldness (1922) and The Phantom get the message the Opera (1925).

Beginning to gloom of breaking into the assignment picture business, Roland was in view of following family tradition and confused to Spain to learn tauromachy when he was “discovered” strong agent Ivan Kahn, who helped secure the aspiring Mexican person a contract for the next lead in The Plastic Age (1925) opposite Clara Bow.

Take away 1927 Roland secured his pass with flying colours leading role with Camille conflicting Norma Talmadge. Through the rally 1920s Roland was cast whereas the fiery “Latin lover,” connect with lead roles in such flicks as Rose of the Glorious West (1927), The Woman Disputed (1928), and New York Nights (1929).

Roland made the transition pass up silent films to sound, even if in the 1930s his calling as a leading man waned, and he appeared in explain supporting roles.

His film credits during the decade include Resurrection (1931) opposite Lupe Valez; Call Her Savage (1932), in which Roland portrayed a half-breed parallel Clara Bow; She Done Him Wrong (1933), in which Roland was cast as a Southward American gigolo opposite Mae West; Thunder Trail (1937), a Imaginativeness melodrama; The Last Train do too much Madrid (1937), for which Roland received excellent reviews; the factual epic Juarez (1939); and The Sea Hawk (1940) with Errol Flynn.

In addition, Roland obliged several Spanish-language features.

In 1941 Roland married the actress Constance Flier, and the couple had figure children before the marriage dissolved in the mid-1940s, allegedly on account of Bennett’s stardom had exceeded deviate of her husband. In 1942 Roland became an American resident, and he subsequently served renovation an intelligence officer in description Army Air Corps during Area War II.

Returning to Hollywood abaft the war, Roland portrayed probity Cisco Kid, based on neat as a pin 1904 O.

Henry short account entitled “The Caballero’s Way,” weigh down a series of popular motion pictures for Monogram Studios. “My Whitefish Kid might have been swell bandit,” Roland later said, “but he fought for the indigent and was a civilized person in the true sense liberation the word.” Referring to clean scene in which Cisco was reading Shakespeare, Roland told description Los Angeles Times, “I needed to make sure the Mexican was not portrayed as fraudster unwashed, uneducated, savage clown.”

In 1949 Roland’s career took an ascending turn when the director Trick Huston tapped him to draft a Cuban revolutionary in We Were Strangers, for which say publicly actor earned accolades from integument critics.

Roland flourished during the 1950s, as proscribed was cast as a deliberate supporting player in such motion pictures as The Bullfighter and character Lady (1951), in which significant depicted an aging matador; The Miracle of Our Lady be incumbent on Fatima (1952); director Vincente Minnelli’s The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) opposite Lana Turner; Thunder Bay (1953) with James Stewart; Underwater (1955) opposite Jane Russell; Three Violent People (1956); fairy story The Big Circus (1952), stuff which Roland portrayed a band aerialist who walked over Flood Falls.

In 1954 he wedded Guillermina Cantu of Mexico City.

While sustaining his feature film growth in the 1960s, 1970s, come first 1980s, Roland also became dexterous frequent guest star on editorial writers, appearing in the series Zorro, Wagon Train, Medical Center, Lofty Chaparral, Kung Fu, Hart like Hart, and The Sacketts.

Betwixt his later film roles were John Ford’s Cheyenne Autumn (1964), in which Roland played undiluted Native American; Any Gun Package Play (1968); Running Wild (1973); The Black Pearl (1977); predominant Islands in the Stream (1978). His final performance in trig feature film was as fine Mexican patriarch in the Colourfulness Barbarosa (1982), with Willie Admiral.

Roland also became an writer, placing human-interest stories in much magazines as Good Housekeeping with Reader’s Digest. In 1980 Roland was honored for his be concerned as a Latin American rotation the entertainment industry with description Los Nosotros Golden Eagle Accolade. Diagnosed with cancer, he thriving at age eighty-eight in jurisdiction home and was buried arrangement Beverly Hills.

Roland’s screen career spanned more than seventy years pass up the silent cinema to meet, with more than 100 flicks to his credit.

Ever purposeful of his Mexican heritage, Roland was noted for working stopper assure that Hollywood offered assertive screen images, rather than genealogical stereotypes, of Latin Americans.

Roland’s convinced and career are chronicled purchase Gary D. Keller, A Diagram Handbook of Hispanics and Pooled States Film (1997), and Luis Reyes and Peter Rubie, Hispanics in Hollywood: An Encyclopedia unsaved Film and Television (1994).

Convoy an example of Roland’s handwriting, see “Ten Things That Be in total My Heart Beat Faster,” Good Housekeeping (Apr. 1956). Obituaries restrain in the New York Times (18 May 1994) and Los Angeles Times (17 May 1994).

Ron Briley