Raquel Welch

Date of birth (location) 5 September 1940 Chicago, Illinois, USA In the mid and late 1960s she was positively ubiquitous, wearing a furry animal-skin bikini on a best-selling poster, but for all her exposure, Raquel Welch wasn't able to maintain a long-term big-screen career. A perennial beauty-contest winner who took ballet lessons and studied drama, she broke into films in 1964 with bits in A House Is Not a Home and Elvis Presley's Roustabout the following year she appeared briefly in A Swingin' Summer She supplemented her meager income by modeling, using her sensuous, high-cheekboned face and spectacular figure to help pay the rent. In 1964 she became the "billboard girl" on TV's "Hollywood Palace." Divorced from high-school sweetheart James Welch, in 1965 she married former child actor and press agent Patrick Curtis, who charted a course for her career. She appeared in many European magazines, and landed a role in the Italian-made EB>. I Don't Understand (1966) that led to a contract with 20th Century-Fox. Fantastic Voyage (also 1966) gave her a costarring part in a hit movie, while the British-made prehistoric saga One Million Years B.C (also 1966) was promoted with a popular poster that made her a household figure, as well as name. She followed up with Fathom (1967), Bedazzled (also 1967, as "Lust"), The Biggest Bundle of Them All, Bandolero! (both 1968), Lady in Cement (also 1968, opposite Frank Sinatra), Flareup, 100 Rifles and The Magic Christian (all 1969). Welch proved to have screen presence, and a sense of humor, but moviegoers were interested in her skin-tight costumes and bikinis, not her acting range. Myra Breckinridge (1970) teamed Raquel with Mae West, the sex symbol of an earlier era, in a horrendous misfire. Hannie Caulder and Kansas City Bomber (both 1972) followed, but her starring days were numbered. She fared best in en semble films like The Last of Sheila (1973) and the send-up swashbucklers The Three Musketeers (1974) and The Four Musketeers (1975), which exploited the novelty of having her poke fun at herself. Other films include Bluebeard, Fuzz (both 1972), The Wild Party (1975), Mother, Jugs & Speed (1976), and Crossed Swords (1978). In the 1980s she launched a cabaret act, and even made it to Broadway, taking over the lead in the musical "Woman of the Year." Her most prized personal project was the TV movie The Legend of Walks Far Woman in which she played an Indian woman at various stages of her life; filmed in 1979, it didn't air until 1982. Since then she has starred in other telefilms-1987's Right to Die and 1988's Scandal in a Small Town and Trouble in Paradise-and found a more positive way of exploiting her still-impressive figure with a series of best-selling exercise videotapes and accompanying fitness books. She played herself in The Naked Gun 33: The Final Insult (1994). Her daughter Tahnee Welch, also an actress, appeared in the all-star hit Cocoon (1985) and its 1988 sequel.