Raquel Welch


Raquel Welch is an American actress and singer.
She first won attention for her role in Fantastic Voyage, after which she won a contract with 20th Century Fox. They lent her contract to the British studio Hammer Film Productions, for whom she made One Million Years B.C.. Although she had only three lines of dialogue in the film, images of her in the doe-skin bikini became best-selling posters that turned her into an international sex symbol. She later starred in Bedazzled, Bandolero!, 100 Rifles, Myra Breckinridge and Hannie Caulder. She made several television variety specials.
Welch's unique film persona made her an icon of the 1960s and 1970s, due to her portrayal of strong female characters and breaking the mold of the archetypal sex symbol. Because of this, her rise to stardom in the mid 1960s was partly credited with ending Hollywood's vigorous promotion of the blonde bombshell. She won a Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture Actress in a Musical or Comedy in 1974 for her performance in The Three Musketeers. She was also nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in Television Film for her performance in the film Right to Die. In 1995, Welch was chosen by Empire magazine as one of the "100 Sexiest Stars in Film History". Playboy ranked Welch No.3 on their "100 Sexiest Stars of the Twentieth Century" list. In 2011, Men's Health ranked her No.2 in its "Hottest Women of All Time" list.

Early life

Welch was born as Jo Raquel Tejada on September 5, 1940, in Chicago, the first child to Armando Carlos Tejada Urquizo and Josephine Sarah Hall. Her father, Armando Tejada, was an aeronautical engineer from La Paz, Bolivia, son of Agustin Tejada and Raquel Urquizo. In 2010 while being interviewed on the talk show Tavis Smiley, Welch stated, "My father came from a country called Bolivia. He was of Spanish descent." Her cousin, Bolivian politician Lidia Gueiler Tejada, later became the first female President of Bolivia, and the second woman ever to become a head of state in the Americas. Welch was named after her paternal grandmother. Her mother, Josephine Hall, was the daughter of architect Emery Stanford Hall and his wife Clara Louise Adams, and was of English ancestry. She has a younger brother James "Jim" Stanford and younger sister Gayle Carole.
The family moved from Illinois to San Diego when Raquel was two years old. Welch attended the Pacific Beach Presbyterian Church every Sunday with her mother. As a young girl, Raquel wanted to perform. She studied ballet from age seven to seventeen but gave it up after her instructor told her she did not have the right figure. At age 14, she won beauty titles as Miss Photogenic and Miss Contour. While attending La Jolla High School she won the title of Miss La Jolla and the title of Miss San Diegothe Fairest of the Fairat the San Diego County Fair. This long line of beauty contests eventually led to the state title of Maid of California. Her parents divorced when she finished her school years.
Welch graduated with honors from high school in 1958. Seeking an acting career, Welch entered San Diego State College on a theater arts scholarship, and the following year she married her high school sweetheart, James Welch. She won several parts in local theater productions. In 1959, she played the title role in The Ramona Pageant, a yearly outdoor play at Hemet, California, which is based on the novel Ramona by Helen Hunt Jackson and Bob Biloe.
She got a job as a weather forecaster at KFMB, a local San Diego television station. Because her family life and television duties were so demanding she decided to give up her drama classes. After her separation from James Welch, she moved with her two children to Dallas, where she made a "precarious living" as a model for Neiman Marcus and as a cocktail waitress.

Career

1964–1966: Early works and breakthrough

Welch initially intended to move to New York City from Dallas, but moved back to Los Angeles in 1963 and started applying for roles with the movie studios. During this period of time, she met one-time child actor and Hollywood agent Patrick Curtis who became her personal and business manager. They developed a plan to turn Welch into a sex symbol. To avoid typecasting as a Latina, he convinced her to use her husband's last name.
She was cast in small roles in two films, A House Is Not a Home and the musical Roustabout, an Elvis Presley film. She also landed small roles on the television series Bewitched, McHale's Navy and The Virginian and appeared on the weekly variety series The Hollywood Palace as a billboard girl and presenter. She was one of many actresses who auditioned for the role of Mary Ann Summers on the television series Gilligan's Island.
Welch's first featured role was in the beach film A Swingin' Summer. That same year, she won the Deb Star while her photo in a Life magazine layout called "The End of the Great Girl Drought!" created buzz around town. She was noticed by the wife of producer Saul David, who recommended her to 20th Century Fox, where with the help of Curtis she landed a contract. She agreed to seven-year nonexclusive contract, five pictures over the next five years and two floaters. Studio executives talked about changing her name to "Debbie". They thought "Raquel" would be hard to pronounce. She refused their request. She wanted her real name, so she stuck with "Raquel Welch".
She was cast in a leading role in the sci-fi film Fantastic Voyage, in which she portrayed a member of a medical team that is miniaturized and injected into the body of an injured diplomat with the mission to save his life. The film was a hit and made her a star.
Fox Studio loaned Welch to Hammer Studios in Britain where she starred in One Million Years B.C., a remake of the Hal Roach film One Million B.C.. Her only costume was a two-piece deer skin bikini. She was described as "wearing mankind's first bikini" and the fur bikini was described as a "definitive look of the 1960s". The New York Times hailed her in its review of the film, "a marvelous breathing monument to womankind". One author said, "although she had only three lines in the film, her luscious figure in a fur bikini made her a star and the dream girl of millions of young moviegoers". A publicity still of her in the bikini became a best-selling poster and turned her into an instant pin-up girl. The film raised Welch's stature as a leading sex symbol of the era. In 2011, Time listed Welch's B.C. bikini in the "Top Ten Bikinis in Pop Culture".
In 1966, Welch starred with Marcello Mastroianni in the Italian film Shoot Loud, Louder... I Don't Understand for Joe E. Levine. The same year, she appeared in the film Sex Quartet as Elena in the segment "Fata Elena". She was the only American in the cast of the anthology film The Oldest Profession ; her segment was directed by Michael Pfleghar. In Italy, she also appeared in a heist movie for MGM, The Biggest Bundle of Them All. It co-starred Edward G. Robinson who said of Welch, "I must say she has quite a body. She has been the product of a good publicity campaign. I hope she lives up to it because a body will only take you so far."

1967–1979: International stardom

Her first starring vehicle, the British Modesty Blaise-style spy movie Fathom, was filmed in Spain for 20th Century Fox. Second unit director Peter Medak said Welch "was at that time quite inexperienced, exactly like one of those American drum majorettes. But she tried very hard and went to see the rushes each day, gradually improving. 'Who's this dumb broad?' people used to say. But I said: 'You wait. I'll bet she makes it.' I liked her very much because she was such a genuine person. And she had a beautiful body which always helps." Welch said her role was "a blown up Barbie doll". Reviewing her performance, the Los Angeles Times film critic said that "each new Raquel Welch picture brings further proof that when Maria Montez died they didn't break the mold. Like Maria, Raquel can't act from here to there, but both ladies seem to have been born to be photographed... this sappiest of spy pictures."
At this stage, Welch owed Fox four films, at one a year. She and Curtis also established their own production company, Curtwel. Fox wanted Welch to play Jennifer in their adaptation of Valley of the Dolls but she refused, wanting to play the role of Neely O'Hara. The studio was not interested, casting Patty Duke; Sharon Tate played Jennifer North.
In England, she appeared as Lust incarnate in the Peter Cook–Dudley Moore comedy, Bedazzled, a Swinging '60s retelling of the Faust legend. It was popular, as was the Western, Bandolero!, which was shot in Del Rio, Texas, at the Alamo Village. It co-starred her against James Stewart and Dean Martin. "I think she's going to stack up all right," Stewart said of Welch. "No one is going to shout, 'Wow it's Anne Bancroft all over again'," said Welch of her performance, "but at least I'm not Miss Sexpot running around half naked all the time."
In 1968, Welch appeared with Frank Sinatra in the detective film Lady in Cement, a sequel to the film Tony Rome. She played the socialite Kit Forrest, the romantic interest of Tony Rome. Welch said later wittily that she catches the film from time to time and now realizes Kit Forrest was an alcoholic: "I'm watching this movie and I'm thinking, 'What the hell has she got on?' At one point, I had this epiphany: 'Oh, she's an alcoholic!' I didn't know that. How could I miss that?" She reportedly was so smitten with Sinatra she forgot to act: "I think I was just so enamoured with Frank Sinatra, you know. He's hypnotic."
Welch starred as a freedom fighter leader in 100 Rifles, a 1969 western directed by Tom Gries and filmed in Almería, Spain. It also starred Jim Brown, Burt Reynolds and Fernando Lamas. The movie provoked publicity and controversy at the time because it included a love scene between Welch and Brown that breached the Hollywood taboo of on-screen miscegenation. The film is remembered for the spectacular "Shower Scene" in which Welch distracts the soldiers on the train by taking a shower at a water tower along the tracks. The director, Gries, tried hard to convince Welch to do the scene naked, but she refused. It was one of the many instances Welch resisted going nude on-screen and pushed back for years against producers who wanted her to act or pose nude. In 1969, Welch also starred in the thriller Flareup and had a supporting role in the dark comedy The Magic Christian.
Welch's most controversial role came in Myra Breckinridge. She took the role as the film's transsexual heroine in an attempt to be taken seriously as an actress, but the movie was a failure. The production was characterized by constant animosity between Welch and Mae West, who walked out of the film for three days. The film was based on Gore Vidal's controversial bestseller about a man who becomes a woman through surgery. The film's producer Robert Fryer stated: "If a man were going to become a woman, he would want to become the most beautiful woman in the world. He would become Raquel Welch". The film was a major flop, but most of the blame was assigned to director Michael Sarne.
Her looks and fame led Playboy to dub her the "Most Desired Woman" of the 1970s. Welch presented at the Academy Award ceremony several times during the 1970s due to her popularity. She accepted the Best Supporting Actress Oscar on behalf of fellow actress Goldie Hawn when she could not be there to accept it.
On April 26, 1970, CBS released the television special Raquel! in which she starred. The special was produced, directed and choreographed by David Winters, and for guest Tom Jones, Bob Hope and John Wayne. It was filmed in London, Paris, Acapulco, Mexico City, Yucatán, Big Sur, and Los Angeles and featured lavish production numbers of song-and-dance extravaganza. It marked Welch's debut special on television. Together Welch and Jones combined musical and comedic talents on classic rock 'n' roll standards of the era. It is considered by some viewers to be a classic pairing together of 1970s popular culture icons in their prime Produced by Winters' company Winters/Rosen for CBS-TV, originally co-sponsored by Coca-Cola and Motorola. On the day of the premiere, the show received a 51% share on the National ARB Ratings and an impressive Overnight New York Nielsen Rating of 58% share.
Welch continued to work in films starting with The Beloved in which she starred and produced and filmed in Cyprus. The next year Hannie Caulder, a Tigon and Curtwell western shot in Spain. She followed with a series of films including Kansas City Bomber, The Last of Sheila, The Three Musketeers, The Four Musketeers and The Wild Party.
In Kansas City Bomber Raquel Welch played a hardened roller-derby star and single mother who tries to balance her desire for a happy personal life and her dreams of stardom. Life dubbed Welch the "hottest thing on wheels" for her role. The production of the film shut down for six weeks after Welch broke her wrist doing some of her own stunts. In the interim, she flew to Budapest and filmed a cameo in Bluebeard opposite Richard Burton. Although Kansas City Bomber was not considered a critical success, it vividly depicted gender relations in the early 1970s. In a 2012 interview with GQ, Welch reflected on the roller derby world depicted in the film: "You have all those women out there, but the men in the front office are really running it. Which I thought was a really nice metaphor for the way a lot of women felt about their lives at that time."
, 1976, with Gilda Radner
In a 1975 interview, Welch said she thought she had been "good" in Kansas City Bomber, Myra Breckenridge and The Last of Sheila "but being good in a bad movie doesn't do anything for your career."
In the late 1970s, Welch appeared in the action comedies Mother, Jugs & Speed and Animal, the last one filmed in France with Jean-Paul Belmondo. In 1977, she also starred in the British swashbuckling adventure The Prince and the Pauper.
In 1978, Welch appeared in an episode of The Muppet Show and in 1979, for the series Mork & Mindy'', Welch was featured as an alien bounty hunter pursuing Robin Williams in "Mork vs. the Necrotons".

1980–present day: subsequent to current projects

In 1981 she starred on Broadway in Woman of the Year, receiving praise for following Lauren Bacall in the title role.
In 1982, Welch acted in the Western television film The Legend of Walks Far Woman. Around this time, Along with Elizabeth Taylor and Sophia Loren, Welch was among the candidates considered for the role of Alexis Carrington on the ABC prime time drama Dynasty which began in 1981, before the producers settled on Joan Collins.
She was due to star in a 1982 adaptation of John Steinbeck's Cannery Row, but was abruptly fired by the producers a few weeks into production. The studio claimed she was not living up to her contract, by refusing early-morning rehearsals, and was replaced with Debra Winger. Welch sued MGM for breach of contract. Studio executives claimed in testimony the reason Welch was following through with the trial was because she was an actress over 40 and generally actresses in that age range can't get roles anymore. Welch's evidence at trial proved there was a conspiracy to falsely blame her for the film's budget problems and delays. The jury sided with Welch and she won a $10.8 million verdict against MGM in 1986.
Despite the win, Welch wished the whole episode never had happened. "I just wanted to clear my reputation and get back to my work, my work in movies", she said. But she was blackballed by the industry and the incident affected her film career on the big screen from that moment on.
In 1987 she played in the television drama Right to Die, in which she turned in a stirring performance as a woman stricken with Lou Gehrig's disease. That year, she flirted with a pop singing career, releasing the dance single "This Girl's Back In Town", which peaked at No. 29 on Billboard's dance club chart.
She also starred in the television films Scandal in a Small Town, Trouble in Paradise, Torch Song. I
In 1994, she had a cameo appearance in
She appeared in the night-time soap opera Central Park West.
As a guest, she played Sabrina's flamboyant Aunt Vesta on the American comedy series Sabrina, the Teenage Witch.
In 1997, Raquel also starred on Broadway in Victor/Victoria, following Julie Andrews and Liza Minnelli in the title role. That year, she also acted in an episode of the comedy series Seinfeld, entitled "The Summer of George", Welch played a highly temperamental version of herself, assaulting series characters Kramer and Elaine, the former because he fired her from an acting job and the latter because Welch mistakenly thought Elaine was mocking her.
In 2002, she starred in the PBS series American Family, a story about a Mexican American family in East Los Angeles. In 2001, she had supporting roles in the comedy films Legally Blonde opposite Reese Witherspoon and Tortilla Soup. Her next film was Forget About It. She also appeared in Welcome to The Captain, which premiered on CBS television on February 4, 2008. In 2015 she played a role in The Ultimate Legacy.
Most recently Welch appeared in a sitcom titled Date My Dad where she reunited with Robert Wagner on screen, four decades after starring together in The Biggest Bundle of Them All. She also acted in How to Be a Latin Lover.

Singing career

For many years, Raquel performed in a successful one-woman nightclub musical act in Las Vegas.

Achievements and awards

In 1974, Welch won a Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture Actress in a Musical or Comedy for The Three Musketeers. She was also nominated for a Golden Globe Award for her performance in the television drama Right to Die. In 1994, Welch received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7021 Hollywood Boulevard. In 2001, she was awarded the Imagen Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award for her positive promotion of Americans of Latin heritage throughout her career. In 2012, the Film Society of Lincoln Center presented a special retrospective of the films of Raquel Welch at the Walter Reade Theater.

Beauty and business career

The Raquel Welch Total Beauty and Fitness Program book and videos were first released in 1984. The book, written by Welch with photographs by André Weinfeld, includes a hatha yoga fitness program, her views on healthy living and nutrition, as well as beauty and personal style. The Multi-Platinum collection of Fitness and Yoga videos were produced and directed by André Weinfeld. As a businesswoman, Welch succeeded with her signature line of wigs. She also began a jewelry and skincare line, although neither of those ventures compared to the success of her wig collection HAIRuWEAR.
In January 2007, Welch was selected as the newest face of MAC Cosmetics Beauty Icon series. Her line features several limited-edition makeup shades in glossy black and tiger-print packaging. The tiger print motif of the collection celebrates Welch's feline and sensuous image: "strong and wild, yet sultry and exotic".

Personal life

Welch married her high school sweetheart, James Welch on May 8, 1959, but they separated in 1962 and divorced in 1964. She married producer Patrick Curtis in 1967 and divorced him in 1972. In 1980, she began a 10-year marriage to producer André Weinfeld, whom she divorced in 1990. Welch wed Richard Palmer, owner of Mulberry Street Pizzeria, in 1999 but then separated from him in 2003 and later divorced. Welch says she will not remarry.
Through her first marriage, Welch is the mother of Damon Welch and actress Tahnee Welch. Tahnee followed her mother's December 1979 example and appeared on the cover of Playboy in the November 1995 issue and in a nude pictorial inside it. In 1990, Damon married Rebecca, daughter of Fred Trueman but the marriage lasted only two years.
Welch posed for Playboy magazine in 1979, but she never did a fully nude shoot. Hugh Hefner later wrote, "Raquel Welch, one of the last of the classic sex symbols, came from the era when you could be considered the sexiest woman in the world without taking your clothes off. She declined to do complete nudity, and I yielded gracefully. The pictures prove her point." Welch has refused to take all her clothes off on screen or pose naked throughout her career spanning five decades, saying this was the way she was brought up. While her image in the 1960s was that of a torrid sex temptress, Welch's private life was quite different. She once famously said, "What I do on the screen is not to be equated with what I do in my private life. Privately, I am understated and dislike any hoopla". She also admitted, "I 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".

Political views

In 2014, during an appearance on The O'Reilly Factor, Welch described herself as being on the conservative side, attributing it to her mother's midwestern values. During Vietnam, Welch showed support for the troops at United Service Organizations shows.

In popular culture

Raquel Welch helped transform America's feminine ideal into its current state. Her beautiful looks and eroticism made her the definitive 1960s and 1970s sex icon, rather than the blonde bombshell of the late 1950s as typified by Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield, and others. Welch became a star in the mid-1960s and was exotic, brunette, and smolderingly sexual. Her countless publicity photos helped to popularize her image, dress style, and 1960s and 1970s fashion trends. Welch and other actresses also made big hair popular.
Raquel Welch is mentioned in the 1971 song, "One's on the Way" by country music legend Loretta Lynn.
Raquel Welch is one of the few actresses, and one of the earliest, who had a lead role in a Western movie. Hannie Caulder was a clear influence on later revenge films. Quentin Tarantino said the film was one of his inspirations for Kill Bill. It took many years, arguably until the 1990s, until female leads appeared in mainstream U.S. cinema who are strongwithout adding fictional or overemphasizing masculine traits.
Additionally, Welch was a significant figure in the film The Shawshank Redemption. The poster that Andy Dufresne had on his prison cell wall at the time of his escape was the famous pinup image of Welch in One Million Years B.C. Prior to Dufresne's escape being realized, the warden refers to Welch as Miss Fuzzy Britches.

Filmography

Film

Television

Stage

Discography

Album appearances

Singles

Books