Mexican-born American film and television actor whose career spanned seven decades from the 1920s until the 1980s. Often cast in the stereotypical “Latin Lover” role, he was twice nominated for the Golden Globe Award (in 1952 and 1964), and inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960.
Roland originally intended to become a bullfighter like his father. When the family moved to the United States, however, he became interested in acting when he was picked at random for a role as an extra. He chose his screen name by combining the names of his favourite actors, John Gilbert and Ruth Roland.
Roland’s first major role was in the collegiate comedy The Plastic Age (1925) together with Clara Bow, to whom he became engaged. In 1926, he played Armand in Camille opposite Norma Talmadge, with whom he was romantically involved, and they starred together in several productions. With the advent of sound films, Roland frequently appeared in Spanish language adaptations of American films, in romantic lead roles. Roland served in the United States Army Air Corps during World War II.
Beginning in the 1940s, critics began to take notice of his acting and he was praised for his supporting roles in John Huston’s We Were Strangers (1949), The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), Thunder Bay (1953), and Cheyenne Autumn (1964). He also appeared in a series of films in the mid-1940s as the popular character “The Cisco Kid”. He played Hugo, the agnostic (and totally fictional) friend of the three shepherd children in The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima, based on the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima in 1917. In 1953, Roland played Greek-American sponge diver Mike Petrakis in the epic Beneath the 12-Mile Reef.
Roland married actress Constance Bennett on 20 April 1941 in Yuma, Arizona. They were married until 1946. He had appeared with Bennett in 1933 as Pepe in George Cukor’s Our Betters, and in the same year, as the romantic lead in After Tonight, a World War I drama. His second marriage to Guillermina Cantú in 1954 lasted until his death 40 years later. Gilbert Roland died of cancer in Beverly Hills, California on 15 May 1994, aged 88.
Link to Wikipedia biography