Gilbert Roland

Born Luis Antonio Damaso de Alonso in Juarez, Mexico, in 1905, dashing screen star Gilbert Roland moved with his family to the U.S. with the onset of the Mexican Revolution between 1910 and 1911. By the late 1910s, Roland's family moved to California, and by 1920 the teenager was getting film work in bit parts. He chose his stage name by using the last names of two of his favorite silent screen stars: serial queen Ruth Roland and matinee idol John Gilbert. After several years of bit parts, at the age of 19 Gilbert Roland secured his breakthrough role in the 1925 Clara Bow vehicle The Plastic Age, one of the first films in which he received screen credit. Bow and Roland, both the same age, became friends and lovers while lensing the film.
Gilbert Roland made the transition to 'talkies' relatively unscathed, unlike many of his co-stars, such as Norma Talmadge, who found their careers had evaporated because their voices were not microphone-friendly. Roland often portrayed Latin-lover types, but he also made numerous westerns from the late 1930s through the late 1960s; in addition, he also proved to be adept at comedy. In 1946, Roland went to Monogram to take over the role of the Cisco Kid, a role which had previously belonged to Warner Baxter, Cesar Romero, and Duncan Renaldo. When Roland abandoned the role in 1948 to freelance at MGM and Columbia, Renaldo was once again the Cisco Kid.
After a string of affairs with his leading ladies, Roland married his first wife, glamorous actress Constance Bennett, in 1941. (Roland was Bennett's fourth husband.) The strikingly beautiful Bennett, the sister of Joan Bennett, was the bigger star of the couple, but during the marriage Roland received the lion's share of publicity from the union, and the press lavished lots of ink on her husband's handsome visage. After producing two children, the couple called it quits in 1946.
He acted in movies until 1982, a long record for someone who started in silent films! After divorcing Bennett, Roland married again to a non-actress, Guillermina Cantu, a marriage that lasted until his death on May 15th, 1994 from cancer.