American cinema is in mourning. Actress Raquel Welch died on Wednesday February 15, 2023 at the age of 82. American actress seen in particular in The Fantastic Voyage and One Million Years BC, she was considered by many to be a sex symbol.
[Mis à jour le 15 février 2023 à 14h08] American actress Raquel Welch died Wednesday at the age of 82, her manager announced. She passed away “peacefully early this morning after a brief illness”, he explained. The career of the actress began in the 1960s. Chaining the roles of figuration in the cinema, the actress saw her career take off with the science fiction film “The Fantastic Journey” by Richard Fleicher. Named the most beautiful woman in the world for her role in 1966’s ‘One Million Years BC’, Raquel Welch had only a few lines of dialogue in the film, but promotional images of her wearing a bikini two pieces of animal skin have transformed her into a real sex symbol.
Despite her public image, she has long expressed discomfort with the portrayal of her body, saying she “wasn’t raised to be a sex symbol, and it wasn’t in her ‘nature’ to “The fact that I became one is probably the most beautiful, glamorous and happiest misunderstanding,” she added. an autobiography she had named “Beyond the cleavage” in which she explained that she had been reduced to the rank of sex symbol when she was a single mother of two children. on the poster with one kid under his arm and the other in a stroller? That breaks the myth a bit, doesn’t it?
Confined to her beauty status in Hollywood, Raquel Welch had chained the films before winning the Golden Globe for best actress in a musical film or a comedy for her performance in “The Three Musketeers” in 1974 and was again nominated in 1987 for the film “Right to Die”. She is also known in particular for her roles in two western classics “Bandolero” and “Les Cent Fusils”. Over a career spanning more than five decades, the actress has appeared in more than 30 films. The American had her star on the Los Angeles Walk of Fame since 1996.
Beyond the cinema, Raquel Welch had also had the opportunity to shine on television where she appeared many times. Beyond the series The Hollywood Palace where she was a regular during season 1, she mainly made short appearances in several series. Among these, we saw it in the Muppet Show, in Mork & Mindy but also in the adventures of Loïs & Clark, Seinfeld or even Spin City. Appreciated by show business and the general public, she often appeared in her own role.
Married four times and mother of two
On the private side, the actress has married four times. Her first husband, James Welch, whose surname she kept, was her first high school sweetheart. It was with him that she gave birth to her two children: her son Damon in 1959 and her daughter Latanne known as “Tahnee” Welch in 1961. She is now an actress. However, the couple separated in 1962 and divorced in 1964. Subsequently, Raquel Welch also shared the life of producer Patrick Curtis from 1967 to 1972 then producer André Weinfeld from 1980 to 1990. Finally, her union with Richard Palmer, president of Mulberry Street Pizzeria, will last four years, from 1999 to 2003. Following her divorce, Welch announces that she will never remarry.