LOS ANGELES -- Gilbert Roland, 88, a dashing leading man who began his movie career in the silent era and became the Mexican Robin Hood figure Cisco Kid, died May 15 at his home in Beverly Hills, Calif. He had cancer.
But he gained his place in the pantheon of pop culture with his performance as the genial bandit Cisco in 11 B-pictures starting in the late 1940s.
He assumed the dashing Cisco role from Duncan Renaldo after World War II. The character was taken from a 1904 O. Henry short story titled "The Caballero's Way." In addition to Renaldo and Mr. Roland, Cisco also was portrayed through silents, talkies, radio and television by such actors as Warner Baxter, Cesar Romero and, earlier this year, Jimmy Smits.
Mr. Roland once said, "My Cisco Kid might have been a bandit, but he fought for the poor and was a civilized man in the true sense of the word."
Mr. Roland was born Luis Antonio Damaso de Alonso on Dec. 11, 1905, in Juarez, Mexico. His father was a bullfighter, and he began to train as a bullfighter but turned to acting when the family came to the United States.
He served in the Army Air Forces during World War II.
In the 1930s, his films included the Mae West comedy "She Done Him Wrong" and "The Last Train from Madrid." In the 1940s and early 1950s, he was in "The Sea Hawk" with Errol Flynn, "Captain Kidd" with Charles Laughton, John Huston's "We Were Strangers" and "The Furies" with Barbara Stanwyck. Evolving into a character actor, he continued to work in such movies as "The Bad and the Beautiful," "Beneath the 12-Mile Reef" and "Bandido."
Among Mr. Roland's later films was the John Ford Western "Cheyenne Autumn" in 1964, and 1977's "Islands in the Stream," based on the Ernest Hemingway novel, which starred George C. Scott. Mr. Roland's last feature film role was as a rancher patriarch with Willie Nelson in the 1982 film "Barbarosa."
From 1941 until their divorce in 1944, he was married to film star Constance Bennett.
Survivors include his wife, the former Guillermina Cantu, whom he married in 1951 and who lives in Beverly Hills; two daughters from his first marriage; and a brother.
