Mary-Kate wrote:I was browsing a used book store several weeks ago, and there was a funny little story I read in a movie book at the time, in which Gilbert Roland explained why he had a certain aversion to stage work:
Roland was playing Armand Duval in a stage production of Camille opposite Jane Cowl when they were set to perform in Los Angeles to an audience packed full of celebrities. In a certain scene, he was to make his entrance while Cowl, as Camille, was sitting at a table writing. His first line in the scene was to be "what are you doing, my dear? writing a letter?" The trouble was, Cowl was so nervous by the star studded audience that she was pacing up and down the stage wringing her hands when Roland entered. As he later explained, his command of English was not firm enough at that time for ad-libbing, so he went ahead and delivered his line "what are you doing, my dear? writing a letter?" It brought down the house (and, unfortunately, Miss Cowl's wrath!)
P.S. Hilarious review of The Reward (1965), Moira.
Now my curiosity is satisfied, and I don't need to see it. I was curious about it because it had Roland, and also Efrem Zimbalist Jr. (who I love as Stu Bailey on 77 Sunset Strip.)
Mary Kate, I'd forgotten that story, though I do recall that Lionel Barrymore was said to have coached GR prior to his attempted stage debut. His nervousness on stage did not prevent him from performing live again--this time before millions of viewers, as described below:
From
Arthur Penn: American Director by Nat Segaloff (Univ. of KY, 2011) comes the story of an encounter with Gilbert Roland, who was preparing to appear in a Playhouse 90 production called
Invitation to a Gunfighter. While to the young New Yorkers involved in the feverish production atmosphere of live television, his presence seemed to hark back to an earlier style of acting, I suspect that his flamboyant appearance, which was one that he adopted when appearing in less than stellar material in the '50s, may have been his defense in a relatively new medium with a new generation. This role was later cited by GR as among the very best of his career.:
For his second Playhouse 90, Penn was given a script that Leslie Stevens had written from a story by Hal Goodman and Larry Klein. Invitation to a Gunfighter was a psychological western at a time when the psychological western was only just coming into being, notably in the films of Anthony Mann, and later of Penn himself. [The Furies was made in 1950 and The Ox-Bow Incident" (William A. Wellman, 1943), "High Noon" (Fred Zinnemann, 1952), and "Shane" (George Stevens, 1953), so this seems a bit of a stretch].
The story is a variation on the warning 'Be careful what you wish for"; gunfighter Hugh O'Brian terrorizes a small western town, so the people hire another gunfighter, Gilbert Roland, to chase him away. When Roland becomes more despotic than O'Brian, the townspeople rehire O'Brian to get rid of Roland. 'It was non-horse western because you couldn't get a horse on the stage without the horse going to the bathroom every four seconds,' recalls Del Reisman, Playhouse 90's story editor. 'Martin [Manulis] gave it to Arthur; it was kind of like, 'It's your turn, Arthur, this is the script.' He brought excitement to it and brought some psychology into the characters. I always admired Arthur for that because it was just a routine story, and by plunging into it the way he did, he gave it some substance.
'Gilbert Roland came into the rehearsal hall,' continues Reisman, 'and he had some kind of Mexican sombrero with spangles, shirt open down to here, and big leather wristbands. He was a delightful person, but he was an old-fashioned movie star, and he was letting everybody know it. He would be at one end of the rehearsal hall, and Arthur would call him, and Gilbert would turn around like he was posing, like he was looking for his close-up. It was a crazy show, but Arthur really brought something to it.
The program aired on March 7, 1957, one week prior to one of the best original productions for that program,
Requiem for a Heavyweight.
This was made into a fair western in 1964 starring Yul Brynner in the role originated by GR.
Reviews were generally good and even a bit laudatory for GR:
"Playhouse 90's 'Invitation to a Gunfighter' seemed to be another ramshackle pioneer plot until Gilbert Roland came into the plot halfway through and lifted its level to excitement..." - UPI March 8, 1957.
Here's an interesting sidelight on GR's reported love of music (his tastes were reportedly toward classical music).
From Hedda Hopper's column on March 10, 1964:
Gilbert Roland has a new crush, Folk Singer Joan Baez. He drove 100 miles to hear her concert at Redlands University, then trekked to San Diego State College [to catch her next show]. He said: 'She is beautiful like a madonna, accompanies herself on the guitar, no scenery, no nothing. It makes your heart ache to hear her.' I asked if Amigo if he's given up bullfights for folk singing, so he told me about Cordobez, a young matador who has made $4 million in three years by fighting every day. Travels around Mexico in Cantinfla's plane. He's now in Spain. Roland finished
a 'Fugitive' segment and will narrate a documentary on the Mexican revolution [I'm not sure if this ever came to fruition]. He and
Danny Blum [the author of "A Pictorial History of the Silent Screen" and other books on film and theater history] visited
Eugene O'Brien (1880-1966), who is in a nursing home. Gene and Norma Talmadge were the two best lovers of the silent films.
Above, Norma Talmadge and Eugene O'Brien in Graustark (1925). 
