Life in pictures: Hollywood siren Raquel Welch dies at 82

The Hollywood star rose to prominence in the 1966 film ‘One Million Years B.C.'

Published: February 16, 2023 11:57 Compiled by Rajagopalan Venkataraman, Assistant Editor-Features , AP and Washington Post

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Raquel Welch, a onetime model and beauty queen, who died on February 15, entered show business in decorous roles before making an impression in the 1966 science-fiction film 'Fantastic Voyage'. In the movie, she plays a scientist who is shrunk to the size of a microbe and injected inside a dying man. Image Credit: AFP

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Later that year, Welch, seen here with New York Jets football player Joe Namath at the 44th Academy awards in Los Angeles, starred as a cave-dwelling woman in 'One Million Years B.C.', a low-budget British adventure fantasy. She hardly spoke in the film — in one scene, she was terrorized by a giant primordial bird — but few moviegoers bought tickets for the dialogue. Even before the film was released, a publicity photo emphasizing her physical charms seemed to say it all. Image Credit: AP

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Welch went on to play one of the seven deadly sins — Lust — in the British comedy 'Bedazzled' (1967) and was frequently cast in westerns, including as a frontier widow who falls in love with Dean Martin in 'Bandolero!' (1968), a doomed Native American revolutionary opposite Jim Brown and Burt Reynolds in '100 Rifles' (1969) and a gunfighter-in-training in 'Hannie Caulder' (1971), with Robert Culp and Ernest Borgnine. Image Credit: AP

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Many of her early films opened to bad reviews. Still, she remained one of Hollywood’s most prominent leading ladies, appearing on the cover of Time magazine and continuing to search for better roles, even as some filmmakers seemed unable to see beyond her looks. Image Credit: AFP

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Welch battled with co-stars and colleagues who called her a diva on the set. She said she threw a frying pan at Brown, the former Cleveland Browns fullback, while making '100 Rifles' and claimed she hired a bodyguard to protect her on 'The Last of Sheila', after director Herbert Ross allegedly struck her in the dressing room. Image Credit: AFP

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Venturing outside Hollywood for work, she found success on TV movies, notably in the Emmy-nominated 'Right to Die' (1987). She also appeared in a pair of Broadway musicals, earning praise for her performances in 'Woman of the Year' and 'Victor/Victoria,' and showed a flair for comedy in films including 'Legally Blonde' (2001), in which she had a small role as a wealthy and comically neurotic widow. In 2010, she published a memoir. Image Credit: AFP

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The first of three children, Welch was born Jo-Raquel Tejada in Chicago on September 5, 1940. Her father was a Bolivian-born aerospace engineer; her mother, an American with English ancestry, worked as an executive assistant at the toy maker Mattel. Ms. Welch worked as a “weather girl” at a San Diego TV station and in 1959 married James Welch, her high school sweetheart. They had two children before separating, but Welch kept his last name while embarking on a career in show business. Image Credit: AP

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