Roland West

Roland West (February 20, 1885 – March 31, 1952) was a Hollywood director known for his innovative film noir movies of the 1920s and early 1930s.

Biography

West was born Roland Van Zimmer to a theatrical family in Cleveland, Ohio, he began acting in vaudeville productions as a teenager. By his early twenties, he was writing and directing vaudeville productions.

Shortly afterward, he began directing films such as The Monster (1925) with Lon Chaney, Sr., The Bat (1926) based on the novel by Mary Roberts Rinehart (dramatized on stage by Rinehart and Avery Hopwood), Alibi (1929), The Bat Whispers (1930) (also based on the Rinehart novel and play), and Corsair (1931).

So established was West by 1930, that The Bat Whispers was billed on posters as Roland West's The Bat Whispers. However, he made only one more film in his career.

Roland West's first wife was actress Jewel Carmen, although the two would eventually become estranged, and West began a longtime affair with actress Thelma Todd. Following Todd's death in 1935 and his divorce from Carmen in 1938, he married actress Lola Lane sometime after June 25, 1946 and remained married to her until his death in 1952.

Roland West (basketball)

Roland West (born June 6, 1944) is a former NBA basketball player for the Baltimore Bullets.

West attended Withrow High School in Cincinnati, Ohio and played college basketball at the University of Cincinnati.

West lettered from 1964-65 to 1966-67 for the Bearcats. As a sophomore starting forward in 1964-65, he averaged 11.0 points and 4.7 rebounds while leading the team in assists (2.6) and blocks (1.3) as the Bearcats went 14-12.

In his junior season of 1965-66, West helped UC to a 21-7 record, the 1966 Missouri Valley Conference championship while averaging 15.5 points and a team-high 9.4 rebounds.

West received a bachelor's degree in Education from Cincinnati.

West was drafted with the first pick in the 20th round of the 1967 NBA Draft.

He played in four games for the Bullets in the 1967-68 NBA season and recorded a total of four points and five rebounds.

West is president and chief executive officer of Roland D. West & Associates Inc., a business consulting firm in Cincinnati. He is a former chair of the Greater Cincinnati area United Negro College Fund campaign. He and his wife, Yvonne, are longtime supporters of UNCF and its mission.

Roland

Roland (Frankish: Hruodland) (died 15 August 778) was a Frankish military leader under Charlemagne who became one of the principal figures in the literary cycle known as the Matter of France. The historical Roland was military governor of the Breton March, responsible for defending Francia's frontier against the Bretons. His only historical attestation is in Einhard's Vita Karoli Magni, which notes he was part of the Frankish rearguard killed by rebellious Basques in Iberia at the Battle of Roncevaux Pass.

The story of Roland's death at Roncevaux Pass was embellished in later medieval and Renaissance literature. He became the chief paladin of the emperor Charlemagne and a central figure in the legendary material surrounding him, collectively known as the Matter of France. The first and most famous of these epic treatments was the Old French Chanson de Roland of the eleventh century.

Two masterpieces of Italian Renaissance poetry, the Orlando innamorato and Orlando furioso, are even further detached from history than the earlier Chansons. Roland is poetically associated with his sword Durendal, his horse Veillantif, and his oliphant horn.

Borderlands (video game)

Borderlands is an action role-playing first-person shooter video game that was developed by Gearbox Software for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. It is the first game in the Borderlands series. The game was released worldwide in October 2009, with the Mac OS X version of being released on December 3, 2010 by Feral Interactive.

A sequel, Borderlands 2, was released worldwide in September 2012.

Gameplay

Borderlands includes character-building elements found in role-playing games, leading Gearbox to call the game a "role-playing shooter". At the start of the game, players select one of four characters, each with a unique special skill and with proficiencies with certain weapons. The four characters are: Roland the Soldier, Mordecai the Hunter, Lilith the Siren, and Brick the Berserker. From then on, players take on missions assigned through non-player characters or from bounty boards, each typically rewarding the player with experience points, money, and sometimes a reward item. Players earn experience by killing both human and non-human foes and completing in-game challenges (such as getting a certain number of kills using a specific type of weapon). As they gain levels from experience growth, players can then allocate skill points into a skill tree that features three distinct specializations of the base character; for example, Mordecai can become specialized in sniping, gunslinging with revolvers, or using his pet Bloodwing to assist in kills and health boosting. Players can distribute points among any of the specializations, and can also spend a small amount of in-game money to redistribute their skill points.

Roland (train)

The Roland was an express train that ran in Germany. For part of its existence, it was also an international train. Introduced in 1939, suspended during World War II, and reintroduced in 1952, it was operated in Germany by the Deutsche Reichsbahn Gesellschaft (DRG), the Deutsche Bundesbahn (DB) and the Deutsche Bahn (DB), respectively.

When running internationally, the train was also operated by the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB-CFF-FFS); between 1969 and 1979 its operators included the Italian State Railways (FS).

The train was named after the statue of Roland that was erected in the market square (Rathausplatz) of Bremen, Germany, in 1404 and has since become a symbol of that city. The Roland depicted in the statue was a Frankish military leader under Charlemagne.

Over the years, the termini, route, classification and formation (consist) of the Roland varied significantly. However, in view of the train's name the route always included Bremen Hbf, in Bremen. When introduced in 1939, the Roland was a Fernschnellzug (FD). After its post-war revival in 1952, it ran as a Schnellzug (D). After about 1956, it was a first-class-only F-Zug.