She was the cavewoman in the fur-lined bikini who fought dinosaurs in the Hammer Schlock thriller One Million Years BC
But would Raquel Welch, who died aged 82 after a short illness, ever have been an international sex symbol if she had bowed to Hollywood demands early in her career? . . and changed her name to Debbie?
“People didn’t like my name. They said it was too ethnic, too difficult to pronounce, too exotic,” she said. “They wanted to change it and I wasn’t happy at all. I really felt like Raquel.”
The daughter of a Bolivian engineer, she became the biggest screen sex symbol since Marilyn Monroe, despite having auburn hair and the films she made were never rated so highly. The cruel consensus was that she looked great as an actress — and that was it.
Especially her dizzying bosom attracted attention and millions of admirers. Nightclub comedians used to make a tasteless gag about it: “I’m so unlucky if Raquel Welch had triplets, I’d be the one on the bottle.”
Would Raquel Welch, who died aged 82 after a short illness, ever have been an international sex symbol if she had bowed to Hollywood demands early in her career? . . and changed her name to Debbie?
She was the cavewoman in the fur-lined bikini who fought dinosaurs in the Hammer Schlock thriller One Million Years BC
The daughter of a Bolivian engineer, she became the biggest screen sex symbol since Marilyn Monroe, despite having auburn hair and the films she made were never rated so highly. Pictured with her children
As Rolling Stone magazine described her in 1974: “Impressive are her large eyes, her strong teeth, her red curls, her broad shoulders and soft breasts, her high waist and good legs, her vulnerability as a sex queen in the balancing act. She wears too much eye make-up and never seems to move, not even tap the ash off her cigarette without thinking about it first.’
But she refused to be exploited for her body and took pride in the fact that, unlike many who were considered more serious actresses, she never did a nude photo shoot.
“I’m my dad’s daughter,” she told Piers Morgan while appearing on his talk show Life Stories, “and that’s just not how you act. There were times when I didn’t really like him, but at the same time I had enormous respect for him.’
Fooled by glamor and sex appeal, men often underestimate her. When she agreed to pose for Hugh Hefner’s Playboy magazine, famous for its front pleats, in 1979, she insisted on wearing a high-waisted swimsuit.
Hefner tried to force her to undress. He called her into his office, where he was only wearing a bathrobe. She was “boring,” he said. Raquel looked at him. “We made a deal,” she replied.
But she has not been shy in her love life and has a number of desirable lotharios including Roger Moore (‘lovely’), Steve McQueen (‘lovely’) and Warren Beatty (who was no particular triumph: ‘He was in everything. Everything, what moves’).
She dismissed the notion that her figure was extraordinary. “A lot has been made of the gargantuan size of my breasts,” she said. “It’s a total myth. I am really a rather average sized lady with good proportions and a beautiful figure. I have a tiny waist and I go in and out and I’m not that plump.
“To be told you’re a sex symbol, the most beautiful girl in the world, is great at first. You think, isn’t that chic? Then you pass a mirror and you say, “Oh, oh, that face isn’t going to launch a thousand ships, and that body isn’t that hot either.” Nobody can be the most beautiful girl in the world.
“The stupid thing is that as soon as someone says you are something, you try to be it.”
She was born Jo Raquel Tejada in Chicago in September 1940, the first child of Armando, an aerospace engineer, and his Irish-American wife Josephine. When Raquel was two years old, the family moved to California and she began taking dance classes.
“My father was always a very strict disciplinarian. When I was little he was the universe, I wanted to please him. He made us all feel that just being alive is not enough. We had to do better than good.’
Welch, pictured in 2017, is survived by her two children, Tahnee and Damon Welch
She refused to be exploited for her body and took pride in the fact that unlike many who were considered more serious actresses, she never did a nude photo shoot
As a teenager, she won a number of beauty pageants with titles including Miss Photogenic, Miss Contour, The Maid of California and Miss Fairest of the Fair.
At 19, she married high school sweetheart James Welch and had two children, Damon and Tahnee, both of whom became actors. But in 1962, after a brief stint as a television weatherman in San Diego, her marriage broke up and she moved with her two children to Dallas, Texas, where she worked as a barmaid.
“It was very scary,” she said. “My husband was bitter – when we first got divorced there was a bumpy road. Everyone said: “This is the end of your ambition.” They told me: “You will never be an actress now, you ruined your life, you can’t have children and you can’t have a career.”
“Well, it’s not true. But there is a price to pay and I paid it. I returned to Hollywood in my early 20s with two babies. It’s not easy raising kids on my own and trying to be discovered, but I thought I’d definitely try.”
With surfing all the rage in California, she was soon popular in beach party movies like A Swingin’ Summer with the Righteous Brothers. She also landed roles in a number of TV shows and films, including roles in Bewitched and The Virginian, and a cameo with Elvis Presley in Roustabout.
“In the 1950s I was totally insane about Elvis,” she admitted. “But when I saw him on the set of ‘Roustabout,’ I was a bit surprised because something about him had changed.
“He was more wrapped up, his hair was obviously dyed and everything was sprayed in place. It was a whitewashed, tidy Elvis. They took all his sex away from him!’
Her breakthrough came when Ursula Andress turned down One Million Years BC. The dialogue for the heroine Loana was unassuming, mostly grunts and screams. But the attention was priceless – and the film, made for under half a million pounds, grossed over £6million (£90million today).
When asked about the iconic 1966 picture of her in a fur bikini, she told the Mail’s Liz Jones, “I’ve never really looked like that. There was a makeup thing, full body makeup, costume, lighting.
“I was a single mother of two when this photo was taken, but nobody knew that at the time. It’s hard to believe, but there I was at the top of this volcano while my two children were at the bottom of the hill in a hotel.’
Dudley Moore, always a man with an eye for a Hollywood starlet, was smitten with her and Raquel was cast in his 1967 flop with Peter Cook, Bedazzled. A spy parody followed, with Raquel playing the title role, Fathom.
As Rolling Stone magazine described her in 1974: “Her big eyes are impressive, her strong teeth, her red curls, her broad shoulders and soft breasts, her high waist and good legs, her vulnerability as a sex queen in the balancing act.”
Fooled by glamor and sex appeal, men often underestimate her
But it was the spaghetti western 100 Rifles who really caused controversy thanks to a passionate kiss with their black star, American football player Jim Brown. Rumor has it that the sexual attraction continued off-camera before degenerating into a feud.
Brown scoffed at this claim. His co-star is a diva, he stressed. “All that crap about Raquel’s picture,” he said. “What I don’t understand is why she isn’t relaxing. The real sex symbols are the ones who don’t mind breaking a sweat. Raquel always has to look perfect.”
Her growing reputation as a difficult star was bolstered by some truly awful films, including Myra Breckinridge, a comedy in which she starred as a trans woman. Mae West, then 77, the original bombshell, was her co-star and the two women loathed each other from the start.
“Mae looked like a dockworker in drag,” Raquel said. “I really think she’s a man. She hasn’t gone anywhere. The limousine that took her to her dressing room also took her to the set. . . She was like a stage set.”
If Raquel Welch didn’t like someone, everyone knew it.
Her career took off with The Three Musketeers in 1973, which earned her a Golden Globe, but her love life took a hit after divorcing her second husband, Patrick Curtis.
At age 30, she was granted a nominal divorce settlement of just $1 and told she would share all her belongings, including her Beverly Hills home and two production companies, with Curtis, even though they were married for less than three years .
In 1980 she remarried Andre Weinfeld, a film director six years her junior. ‘He may not be handsome or famous,’ she said, ‘but I love him very much. After my last marriage I said never again, but Andre must have sent the right signals because never didn’t last forever.”
Neither does marriage. They divorced in 1990. A fourth marriage, to Richard Palmer, a pizza parlor owner, in 1999 lasted just four years.
She insisted she had “real feelings for all of these men.” At the time I thought I was legitimately in love and that we could have a great life together, but it wasn’t in the cards.”
By the time of her third marriage, her reputation for being impossible on set was cemented, and it never changed.
“Prickly as a hedgehog,” Liz Jones commented after interviewing her. The business of being beautiful was exhausting.
Welch was named one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in Motion Picture History in 1995
Wel poses for a portrait in Los Angeles in 1978 after years of stardom
The star films her workout video, Body and Mind: Total Relaxation and Stress Relief Program
“I think my image has always intimidated me more than anyone else,” Raquel once said sadly.
“I mean, there’s a tremendous loss of self because you really have a job with that image that’s been created.
“You get tired, you wake up ugly, you have nothing new to say to people, and you feel like a lemon with all the juice squeezed out.”
She added: “I don’t want people to think I’m ungrateful. Having people think you’re a knockout is a huge perk in show business, but it doesn’t get you roles like the ones Judi Dench is being offered.’
But could Dame Judi ever fight a dinosaur wearing a bearskin bikini?