Since it was Raquel Welch's birthday on the 5th of September, I thought that it would only be appropriate to praise this beautiful and timelessly talented actress with a Throwback Thursday post. Let's take a look at the sexy career of Raquel Welch with today's #TBT!
Born Jo Raquel Tejada in Chicago, the young Raquel grew up with her Bolivian engineer father and American mother in San Diego. She studied dance, but her dance teacher dissuaded her from a dance career and even suggested that she become a comedian instead. Raquel was a young woman who was confused by the attention that she got from men because she felt that she didn't look like the sex symbols of the 50s. Little did she know that she would become one of the sex symbols of the following decades!
Raquel eloped with her teen boyfriend and had two kids when she was very young. Before she knew it, her marriage fell apart and she was a single mother in her early 20s. She became a local weather girl and tried to save money to move to New York, but she eventually decided to stay in Los Angeles because it cost a lot less money than moving across the city. Even though she was stunning, she had a rough start and she is one of those rare people who really made it in the industry on her own.
Shockingly modeling agencies rejected her despite the fact that her proportions were legendarily 37-22-33 - what an hourglass! She changed her name to attempt to seem less ethnic and more appealing to 1960s casting agencies. It did not take long for her to figure out that accentuating her outstanding figure would make her stand out during these auditions. That's exactly what she did.
She met an agent named Patrick Curtis who saw the writing on the wall: Raquel was meant to be a sex symbol. He helped score her bigger auditions and she was cast by Fox in Fantastic Voyage and One Million Years B.C. which wound up launching her into stardom, but in a very weird way.
The poster for her 1966 film One Million Years B.C. is what made her famous. You read that right - the poster. Not the film. The promotional stills of her in a tight, flesh-colored bikini were distributed to magazines around the world while the film continued to shoot. When she returned to Hollywood after filming the movie in the Canary Islands, she had no idea that everyone back home already knew who she was because of those photos.
The bronzed beauty graced bedrooms of boys around the world as her star rose. Since her sex symbol status came upon her quite suddenly, Raquel was never totally comfortable with the label. She wasn't sure how to handle being a male fantasy and she was upset to be written off by the feminist movement of the day as some kind of vapid vixen. Raquel, sadly, wasn't sure what she wanted. Luckily, that did not stop her from continuing to work in sexy films.
She was the original hot babe in Bedazzled, showing off her tiny waist and bodacious boobs in a slinky silver bikini. That costume is so iconic that it was recreated for the remake of the film decades later. I love this movie and I think that Raquel sizzles in it!
She later starred in several westerns including 100 Rifles and Hannie Caulder. She was practically an action star as she rolled around in the dirt with the big boys, flashing her ass as her dress rode up.
She was asked to go nude in 100 Rifles by taking a sexy shower near the beginning of the film, but she did not want to do it. She said it wasn't the nudity that upset her, but she worried that if she went nude as a leading lady early in the movie that she wouldn't be taken as the strong lead throughout the movie. Instead of going nude, she engaged in wet T-shirt play which was her suggestion. She knew that her shirt wet on her bare breasts would be titillating enough - and it was.
You can see the scene here and you should know there is also a rare lip slip in one shot:
Raquel turned down a role in Valley of the Dolls - which then went to Sharon Tate - because she thought she might be cast in Blow-Up. She wasn't and she struggled to get "better" roles in movies as directors didn't seem to think that someone so beautiful could play more difficult roles. She starred in the film Myra Breckenridge was majorly flopped, but Raquel considered it her first serious role and she was very proud of it.
She was labeled difficult after a while. She often fought with directors and she made headlines when she stormed off the set of The Last of Sheila. Reportedly, she and the director got into a huge fight on set over her leaving early to do publicity for another film and she had claimed that he hit her. Despite that, the other people involved in the movie turned on Raquel and badmouthed her in the press.
That coupled with her constant negotiations over what she was willing to show onscreen unfortunately labeled her as a bitch. I don't think it's warranted, personally. I think it is clear that Raquel's fame was thrust on her in ways that she did not see coming. Think about it: she was a beautiful woman who did not know she was beautiful. She did not know how to flaunt it and love like Marilyn.
In the 1970s, Raquel's career was mired with so much controversy that she decided to slow her role (mostly because of a lawsuit against MGM when she was fired unfairly from a film - a lawsuit that she ultimately won). She took a break for several years in the 1980s - with the exception of a cameo in a Muppet music video - until she returned in the late 80s in a big way: with a music video called "This Girl's Back in Town".
Raquel was back indeed! She acted in TV movies and TV shows for decades, finding more freedom as she got older and was seen as less of a sex symbol. No matter how old she is, Raquel Welch is still hot. She has an undeniably hot bod and released a great memoir called Beyond the Cleavage which was a bestseller. When you look at her entire career, it had a hot start and a hot end and I love her for that.
