Actress Raquel Welch died at the age of 82: ‘A sex symbol’

The actress died yesterday morning after a short illness, family members confirm after the American news site TMZ reported about her death.

That one photo

She was known for her role in the 1973 film The Three Musketeers, for which she received a Golden Globe. She also starred in Fantastic Voyage and One Million Years BC. For that film she stripped naked in 1966: she was seen in a fur bikini.

Although One Million Years B.C. received poor reviews, the movie poster featuring Welch in the bikini received critical acclaim.

That one photo has haunted her all her life. “Am I tired of it? No,” she said The Guardian in an interview about. Almost every day she received the photo at home with the question if she wanted to sign it. “I must have looked at that photo a million times,” she said.

Welch was born Jo-Raquel Tejada in 1940 in Chicago. She was the child of a Bolivian father and American mother. More than twenty years ago, she told The New York Times in an interview that she was proud of her origins.

Her hair was bleached blonde for her role in One Million Years BC, she said. “It was part of the marketing. You couldn’t be too different.”

On TV until 2017

According to The Guardian, the actress wanted to be a ballet dancer since childhood, but realized at the age of 17 that she “didn’t have the figure for it.” She played various roles until 2017, especially for television series.

Correspondent Erik Mouthaan says Welch would have loved to play Shakespearean roles, but didn’t get them. She married four times in her life, but divorced her last husband in 2008. She leaves behind two children.