Raquel Welch (1940-2023): Life and times of Hollywood's famous sex symbol

The film that made Raquel Welch a star! In 1966, Welch got her first lead role in Richard Fleischer's cult sci-fi film 'Fantastic Voyage' and the film made her a star overnight.

The movie, which was based on a story by Otto Klement and Jerome Bixby, revolves around the medical team who goes into the brain of a scientist to repair his damaged nerve and save his life. 

''I was terribly unsure of myself,'' Welch said in an interview, ''I remember when I was doing ‘Fantastic Voyage', every day for five months I’d sit in the commissary at lunch with [co-stars] Stephen Boyd and Edmond O’Brien and Donald Pleasance and I’d hardly know what they were talking about. It wasn’t only things about acting, but words I didn’t know and restaurants and foods I’d never heard of. And I’d try to act sophisticated and knowing, but I wasn’t.''

Not the character, but Raquel Welch's fur skin bikini become the talk of the entire world. After 'Fantastic Voyage', Welch starred in the film 'One Million Years B.C' as a cavewoman Loana, however, she hardly has three lines in the film, but her fur bikini was something that made her the international sex symbol. 

The bikini poster of the film featuring Welch caused a stir worldwide and become one of the biggest-selling posters of all time.

“With the release of that famous movie poster, in one fell swoop, everything in my life changed and everything about the real me was swept away,” Reflecting on the role, Welch wrote in her autobiography 'Beyond the Cleavage.'

“All else would be eclipsed by this bigger-than-life sex symbol.”
 

After her fur bikini, Raquel Welch again became the talk of the world, and all thanks go to the American flag bikini that she wore in 'Myra Breckinridge.'

After making the world fan of her physic and bikinis, Raquel Welch 1973 played the role of Constance de Bonacieux in 'The Three Musketeers'. The movie was a huge box office hit, and Welch won her first Golden Globe for her role in 1974.

After saying no for almost a decade, Raquel Welch finally posed nude for Playboy magazine in 1979. Known as one of the hottest pin-ups of the 1960s and 1970s, Welch showed off her perfect curves as she stripped down to a small blue bikini and covered her breast with her hand.

In her 2015 interview with Piers Morgan, she revealed that she declined Hugh Hefner's offer for the Playboy shoot almost 57 times, and the reason behind this was her strict father.

“I am my father’s daughter, and that’s just not the way you behave,” she explained, per Post. “You don’t do that if you are a certain kind of a woman, and that’s the kind of woman I was raised to be.”

Raquel Welch met the late Queen Elizabeth II at a Royal Film performance in 1966, and for the special meeting, Raquel wore a white gown with a plunging front. And, with her gown, she carried a fur scarf, which added extra drama to her look.

Raquel Welch was one of the most desired actresses in Hollywood. However, while her life in the spotlight may feel like happening, in her real life she was a single mother with two little children.

In her autobiography ‘Raquel: Beyond the Cleavage’, Welch wrote, “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!”