- Sam Cabral
- BBC – Washington
American actress Raquel Welch, often credited with paving the way for modern action heroines in Hollywood films, has died at the age of 82.
Her manager said she passed away peacefully on Wednesday morning after a short illness.
Welch became a global sex symbol in the 1960s and is widely remembered for playing a bikini-clad cave woman in the 1966 film “One Million Years BC.”
She also won a Golden Globe Award for her role in “The Three Musketeers” in 1974.
Born Jo Raquel Tejada in 1940, Welch grew up in California, where she won teen beauty pageants and later became a local weather anchor.
During a short stint in Dallas, Texas, Welch, then a divorced mother of two, worked as a model for Neiman Marcus clothing store and as a waitress.
Her big breakthrough came in 1964, shortly after her return to California, when she appeared in Home Is Not a Home and Roustabout, a musical starring Elvis Presley.
And two years later, she appeared in two consecutive roles in the science fiction movie “A Wonderful Journey” and the fantasy movie “One Million Years BC”.
Welch only had a few lines in the latter film, but promotional shots of her in a leather two-piece outfit turned her into the leading poster girl of the era.
Despite her public image, she has long expressed discomfort with how her body is presented, once saying, “I wasn’t born to be a sex symbol, and it’s not in my nature to be.”
“The fact that I became one is probably the most beautiful, glamorous and fortunate misunderstanding,” she added.
Welch continued to address her image in her memoir, Raquel: Beyond the Split, where she talks about her childhood and the troubles of her early career as a single mother in Hollywood, and why she never lied about her age.
In a career spanning more than five decades, Welch has appeared in more than 30 films and 50 television programmes.
This included playing the girlfriend of Frank Sinatra’s character in the 1968 film “Lady in Cement” and the transgender heroine in the 1970s “Mera Breckenried”; and a Golden Globe-nominated performance in the 1987 TV drama The Right to Die.
Later in life, she also launched her own line of wigs, a line of jewelry, skincare, and a makeup line, MAC Cosmetics.
She passed away, leaving behind her son, Damon Welch, and daughter, Latan “Tahne” Welch, who is also an actress.
