Gilbert Roland

  1. John Roche, Beauty for Sale, 1933.    Neither the title, not Madame Sonia’s Salon is as wic kwd as they sound. ’Tis a beauty salon (and Madame Sonia is Hedda Hopper, no less). Inbetweern shampoos and mud-packs, the staff  dream about a wealthyt life  with  Mr Right.  Such as  Roche (instead of Roland).
  2. Charles Boyer, The Garden of Allah, 1936.      More gaucho than Trappist monk (he was even nicknamed Amigo), Roland was in from the start. Even when Boyer first became available, and Oberon was the monk’s lover, producer David Selznick secretly tested Dietrich with Roland… one of her tennis partners.
  3. Alan Marshal, The Garden of Allah, 1936.    Amigo also lost the third banana role to Marshal.
  4. Don Ameche, Ramona, 1936.     Roland-Rita Hayworth became Ameche-Loretta Young once Fox merged with 20th. Roland had no rivals when he succeeded Cesar Romero as The Cisco Kid, 1946-1947.  
  5. Raf Vallone, Harlow, 1964.  For one of the trashiest Hollywood biopix ever made, director Gordon Douglas wanted the Mexican star to play Jean Harlow’s Italian stepfather. (Hey, accents are accents). This was  the second  of New York producer Joseph E Levine’s three snitty/snotty movies about Hollywood –  The Carpetbaggers, 1963, and The Oscar, 1965. Each one was worse than the precedent.

 

 Birth year: 1905Death year: 1994Other name: Casting Calls:  5