Roland Gift came dramatically to pop cultures attention with the Fine Young Cannibals appearance on the much loved music television program The Tube performing their first single Johnny Come Home. Johnny was followed by their second hit Suspicious Minds which paved the for the release of their self titled album, Fine Young Cannibals.

It was with the second FYC album four years later, that the band broke the USA and the rest of the world. "She Drives Me Crazy" and “Good Thing” reaching number 1 in the states along with the album topping the Billboard chart for 11 consecutive weeks.

Gift spent the earlier part of his life in Birmingham then Hull. He entered music first as a saxophonist with punk band Blue Kitchen, moving on from there to the Acrylic Victims, eventually joining Andy Cox and David Steel after the disintegration of The Beat sent them in search of a vocalist.

In 1987, Gift had his first screen role in the film Sammy and Rosie Get Laid, and also appeared in Out of Order the same year.

Roland also appeared as a lounge singer in the 1987 film Tin Men, directed by Barry Levinson, which the group also composed the score for.

In 1989, he appeared in Scandal as Johnny Edgecombe, Christine Keeler's boyfriend. In 1990 he did his first professional stage work as an actor, playing Romeo in the Hull Truck Theatre's production of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, a production which played in the United States at the Staller Centre for the Arts.

In December 1992, Gift began the first of five appearances as the evil Immortal Xavier St. Cloud in the television series Highlander.

In 1993 he stared in an episode of the Yorkshire Television series Heartbeat. He also had a role as the jazz musician, Eddie Mullen in the miniseries Painted Lady (1997), starring Helen Mirren, and played the lead in the movie The Island of the Mapmaker's Wife (2001).

Recently Gift has completed 2 plays and a monologue for the BBC’s radio 4. The monologue, Sparkhill, recalls the area of Birmingham where Roland was born and grew up in. The play Return to Vegas is inspired by his time growing up in Hull nightclubs and A Punks Progress is a coming of age story from when Roland and his mates used to follow The Clash.

Gift’s professional career has taken him from stage to screen and back again, as his fans around the world await the release of his next project.