Raquel Welch posed for the 1979 Playboy. But the actress very consciously did not take off her clothes completely. According to founder Hugh Hefner, it was also unnecessary for Welch to show her body completely naked to the public. “She was one of the last classic sex symbols,” Hefner praised her. “She came from an era when you could still be found the sexiest woman in the world without taking your clothes off. I respected that. The photos proved she was right.”
Born in Chicago in 1940, the actress is one of the great sex symbols of the 1960s and 1970s. The daughter of a Bolivian immigrant who found work in the US as an aerospace engineer, her breakthrough came when she won a series of Miss pageants as a teenager in California. This earned her a job as a weather forecaster for a local TV station, which brought her into the spotlight at the Hollywood studios.
Also read an interview with Raquel Welch from 2007: “Why I’m Not Blonde”
During that period she changed her name from Tejada – the family name of her parents – to Welch, the name of her childhood sweetheart whom she was married to between 1959 and 1962. She did this on the advice of her manager at the time; with the name Tejada she would only be asked for stereotypical Latino roles. “At 20th Century Fox they even wanted me to change my name to ‘Debbie’,” the actress told in 2007 in conversation with NRC. “They thought Raquel was strange, no one could pronounce or remember that. But I was rebellious.”
In 1966 the sf classic went Fantastic Voyage premiered, in which Welch played her first major role. The film is about a team of medical experts who have themselves reduced and injected into the body of a scientist. The success of the studio Fox hit – which even won two Oscars – earned her a large number of roles, mainly because of her seductive physique.
Welch’s poster in a fur bikini, an image from the movie One Million Years BC (1966), became one of the best-selling posters of all time, landing on the walls of tens of millions of teenage bedrooms around the world. The crucial supporting role who played the print in the acclaimed Stephen King film adaptation in the 1990s The Shawshank Redemption confirmed the statue’s iconic status. Welch’s other successful films during that period were Bedazzled (1967), Bandolero! (1968) and 100 rifles (1969).
Under its own power
With her roles, Welch broke the stereotype that sex symbols could only be blonde dolls and not strong women at the same time. It gave the actress a unique status that she could live on all her life. But the stigma also bothered her, she said in 2007: “The feminists had a clear judgment about me: I was the ‘sex object’. That annoyed me. I thought: here I am, I am a mother, I am alone, I got there entirely on my own, with guts and luck. People think I’m sexy, yes. Is that bad? I’m not a scientist, I’m in show business!”
In the 1970s and 1980s, Welch still had a number of hits – she won a Golden Globe for her role in The Three Musketeers (1975) and was nominated for a Globe for euthanasia drama Right to Die (1988). And the star was praised for her Broadway performance Woman of the Year (1980). But there were also flops and films whose production was characterized by piles of problems.
The controversial comedy Myra Breckinridge (1970), in which Welch played an addicted transsexual, flopped both commercially and artistically (“this movie is as funny as a child molester,” judged Times Magazine). And the actress became during the shooting of the set of the tragicomedy Cannery Row (1982) was sent, according to the producer, because it was impossible to work with Welch because of her many demands.
Legally Blonde
The humiliated leading actress went to court to get her right and did so four years later – studio MGM had to pay her $ 15 million in damages. But her reputation had already been tarnished. And, along with a new generation of directors, a new generation of actresses had emerged in the 1970s who had to rely less on their appearance at castings.
Her main achievements in cinema in the 1990s were bit parts in The Naked Gun 33 1/3 (1994) and Legally Blonde (2000). Media wrote less and less about her films and series and more and more about her private affairs. In the 1980s and 1990s, Welch remarried twice: first to producer Andre Weinfeld (1980-1990), then to pizza chain boss Richard Palmer (1999-2003).
The acting fell further into the background. Welch tried to follow in Jane Fonda’s footsteps with a fitness book and video (produced by her husband Andre Weinfeld). However, she had more success with a line of wigs, HAIRuWEAR. This was later followed by a collaboration with make-up brand MAC, which wanted to make it clear with a so-called ‘pro-age’ campaign that women over the age of sixty are also allowed to devote a lot of attention and money to their appearance.
Raquel Welch passed away at the age of 82.