Actress Raquel Welch died on Wednesday (February 15) at her home in Los Angeles after a brief illness. Her son confirmed her death to the New York Times. Welch was 82.
Born Jo Raquel Tejada on September 5, 1940, in Chicago, Welch, who was of Bolivian descent, married her high school sweetheart, John Welch, right after graduation. She worked as a cocktail waitress, weather presenter, and model before making her way to Hollywood in the early 1960s.
Her first big break in the movie industry was starring in the 1966 sci-fi adventure Fantastic Voyage. In the film, she played Cora Peterson, a member of a medical team that boards a submarine that is then shrunk and injected into the body of a scientist to save his life.
Welch will forever be remembered for her small role as a cavewoman in the 1966 adventure-fantasy film One Million Years B.C. because of the two-piece deerskin outfit she wore. The image became a best-selling poster and cemented her name as an international sex symbol. Feminist academic and social critic Camille Paglia described the photo as “the indelible image of a woman as queen of nature.”
Welch went on to star in such movies as the 1967 comedy Bedazzled, the 1968 Western Bandolero!, and the 1969 Western 100 Rifles, among many others. She earned a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy for her role in the 1973 swashbuckler film The Three Musketeers.
As with Hollywood back in the day, Welch was quiet about her Latine heritage because she was told she would be typecast. She told The NY Times in 2001, “It was told to me that if I wanted to be typecast, I would play into that until later on in her life.” Due to her seeing how times are changing when it comes to Latine representation in Hollywood, she went on to say, “I’m happy to acknowledge it and it’s long overdue and it’s very welcome.”
Around the same time, Welch starred in the sleeper comedy Tortilla Soup alongside a mostly Latine cast that included Héctor Elizondo, Elizabeth Peña, Paul Rodriguez, and Constance Marie.
According to a statement from her manager, Raquel Welch leaves behind her two children, son Damon Welch and daughter Tahnee Welch.
