100 Million Years AN ICON!
Raquel Welch 1940-2023 THE SEX SYMBOL WAS ANYTHING BUT A DUMB BEAUTY QUEEN
Her sultry looks and voluptuous body gave her a launching pad, but Raquel Welch always refused to follow the script written by the powerful men who controlled Hollywood – and tried to change her “exotic” name to Debbie!
Instead, she stuck to her guns and conquered Tinseltown on her own terms. This feat was at the forefront of the many
obituaries following the star’s death on February 15 aged 82 following a brief illness.
Raquel also never lost her sense of humour, particularly in relation to the global obsession with her “soft breasts, high waist and good legs”, as described by Rolling Stone magazine in 1974.
Though she would later dismiss the title as nothing more than a misunderstanding, Raquel was declared the biggest sex symbol since Marilyn Monroe when she made her iconic appearance as the dinosaur-fighting cavewoman in low-budget schlock 1966 thriller,
One Million Years B.C.
Scantily dressed in an unforgettable fur-lined bikini, Raquel became an instant worldwide pin-up.
“The irony of it all is that even though people thought of me as a sex symbol, in reality I was a single mother of two small children!” she wrote in her 2010 memoir, Raquel: Beyond the Cleavage.
She again proved her mettle when she took on Playboy mogul Hugh Hefner, after he tried to bully her into posing naked for a centrefold. He told Raquel her shoot in the agreed red swimsuit was boring because there were “no t**s and there’s no a***”.
Getting her full fee and retaining her dignity, Raquel never posed naked in a career that spanned over 50 years. She made 30 films, including a Golden Globe-winning performance in The Three Musketeers, and made many TV appearances, including on Mork & Mindy, Bewitched and Mchale’s Navy.
Away from the screen, Raquel married four times and had two children, Damon and Tahnee, who starred in the 1985 movie, Cocoon. Raquel admitted she
‘I’ve had a very lovely, beautiful life’
was never really good at marriage, saying the men in her life didn’t like that she garnered most of the attention.
She also romanced a string of famous men, including “lovely” Steve Mcqueen and “adorable” Dudley Moore.
Raquel was less flattering about legendary lothario Warren Beatty, about whom she witheringly said, “He’s been with everything. Anything that moves.”
After the breakdown of her fourth and final marriage to restaurateur Richard Palmer in 2003, Raquel boasted, “I don’t have to have a man.
“I actually enjoy being me and I make a very good living at it and I’m happy. I’m just content.
“I feel like I’ve had a very lovely, beautiful life.”