February 16, (THEWILL) – Raquel Welch, the actress credited with paving the way for modern day action heroines in Hollywood films, has died at 82.
According to her manager, the iconic movie star passed away peacefully on Wednesday morning, after a brief illness.
Welch became an international sex symbol in the 60s, widely remembered for playing a bikini-clad cavewoman in the 1966 film ‘One Million Years B.C’.
She also won a Golden Globe for her role in 1974’s ‘The Three Musketeers’.
Born, Jo-Raquel Tejada in 1940, Welch grew up in California, where she won teen beauty pageants and later became a local weather forecaster.
During a brief stint in Dallas, Texas, the divorced mother-of-two modelled for the Neiman Marcus clothing store and worked as a cocktail waitress.
Her big break came in 1964 soon after she moved back to California, when she scored cameos in ‘A House Is Not A Home’, and ‘Roustabout’, a musical starring, Elvis Presley.
She shot to prominence two years later, with her back-to-back roles in the sci-fi film ‘Fantastic Voyage’ and the fantasy movie ‘One Million Years B.C’.
Welch only had a few lines in the latter, but promotional materials of her wearing a skimpy two-piece deerskin bikini turned her into a leading pin-up girl of the era.
Despite her public image, however, she long expressed discomfort with the representation of her body, once saying she “was not brought up to be a sex symbol, nor is it in my nature to be one”.
“The fact that I became one is probably the loveliest, most glamorous and fortunate misunderstanding”, she added.
She leaves behind a son, Damon Welch, and daughter, Latanne “Tahnee” Welch, who is also an actress.
About the Author
