86 Facts About Raquel Welch

Raquel Welch's rise to stardom in the mid-1960s was partly credited with ending Hollywood's vigorous promotion of the blonde bombshell.

Raquel Welch won a Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture Actress in a Musical or Comedy in 1974 for her performance as Constance Bonacieux in The Three Musketeers and reprised the role in its sequel the following year.

Raquel Welch was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in Television Film for her performance in Right to Die.

Raquel Welch was the first child of Josephine Sarah Hall and Armando Carlos Tejada Urquizo.

Raquel Welch's father was an aeronautical engineer from La Paz, Bolivia, of Spanish descent; he was the son of Raquel Urquizo and Agustin Tejada.

Raquel Welch had a younger brother, James, and a younger sister, Gayle.

Raquel Welch was raised in the Presbyterian religion and attended Pacific Beach Presbyterian Church every Sunday with her family.

Raquel Welch began studying ballet at age seven, but after ten years of study, she left the art at seventeen when her instructor told her she did not have the right body type for professional ballet companies.

Raquel Welch's parents divorced when she finished her school years.

Raquel Welch assumed his last name and kept it throughout her life.

In 1960, Raquel Welch got a job as a weather presenter at KFMB, a local San Diego television station.

Raquel Welch initially intended to move to New York City from Dallas, but moved back to Los Angeles in 1963 and started applying for roles with film studios.

Raquel Welch was cast in small roles in two films, A House Is Not a Home and the musical Roustabout, an Elvis Presley film.

Raquel Welch landed small roles on the television series Bewitched, McHale's Navy and The Virginian and appeared on the weekly variety series The Hollywood Palace as a billboard girl and presenter.

Raquel Welch was one of many actresses who auditioned for the role of Mary Ann Summers on the television series Gilligan's Island.

Raquel Welch's first featured role was in the beach film A Swingin' Summer.

Raquel Welch was strongly considered for the role of Domino in Thunderball and was noticed by the wife of producer Saul David, who recommended her to 20th Century Fox, where with the help of Curtis she landed a contract.

Raquel Welch agreed to a seven-year nonexclusive contract, five pictures over the next five years, and two floaters.

Raquel Welch wanted her real name, so she stuck with "Raquel Welch".

Raquel Welch's only costume was a two-piece deer skin bikini.

Raquel Welch was described as "wearing mankind's first bikini" and the fur bikini was described as a "definitive look of the 1960s".

In 1966, Raquel Welch starred with Marcello Mastroianni in the Italian crime film Shoot Loud, Louder.

Raquel Welch was the only American in the cast of the anthology comedy film The Oldest Profession ; her segment was directed by Michael Pfleghar.

Raquel Welch has been the product of a good publicity campaign.

Raquel Welch's first starring vehicle, the British Modesty Blaise-style spy film Fathom, was filmed in Spain for 20th Century Fox.

At this stage, Raquel Welch owed Fox four films, at one a year.

In 1968, Raquel Welch appeared with Frank Sinatra in the detective film Lady in Cement, a sequel to the film Tony Rome.

Raquel Welch played the socialite Kit Forrest, the romantic interest of Tony Rome.

Raquel Welch starred as a freedom fighter leader in 100 Rifles, a 1969 western directed by Tom Gries and filmed in Almeria, Spain.

The film is remembered for the spectacular "Shower Scene" in which Raquel Welch distracts the soldiers on the train by taking a shower at a water tower along the tracks.

The director, Gries, tried hard to convince Raquel Welch to do the scene naked, but she refused.

In 1969, Raquel Welch starred in the thriller Flareup and had a supporting role in the dark comedy The Magic Christian.

Raquel Welch took the role of the film's transsexual heroine in an attempt to be taken seriously as an actress.

Raquel Welch's looks and fame led Playboy to dub her the "Most Desired Woman" of the 1970s.

Raquel Welch presented at the Academy Awards ceremony several times during the 1970s due to her popularity.

Raquel Welch accepted the Best Supporting Actress Oscar on behalf of fellow actress Goldie Hawn when Hawn could not be there to accept it.

Also that year Raquel Welch starred in The Beloved with co-star Richard Johnson, which she co-produced and filmed in Cyprus.

In 1971, Raquel Welch had the title role in Hannie Caulder, a Western produced by Tigon and Curtwel, which was shot in Spain.

Raquel Welch was one of the few actresses, and one of the earliest, who had a lead role in a Western film.

The production of the film shut down for six weeks after Raquel Welch broke her wrist doing some of her own stunts.

In 1973, Raquel Welch acted in two films: The Last of Sheila and The Three Musketeers.

Raquel Welch was offered the title role in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, which earned an Oscar for its eventual star Ellen Burstyn; she turned down the chance to play Honey Bruce in the biographical film Lenny, a part that went to Valerie Perrine.

In 1975, Raquel Welch appeared in The Wild Party and performed a duet with Cher, singing "I'm a Woman" on an episode of The Cher Show.

In 1977, Raquel Welch acted in the French film Animal, co-starring with Jean-Paul Belmondo.

Raquel Welch starred in the British swashbuckling adventure The Prince and the Pauper.

Raquel Welch made a guest appearance on The Muppet Show in 1978, where she sang "I'm a Woman" with Miss Piggy.

In 1982, Raquel Welch starred in the Western The Legend of Walks Far Woman for NBC.

In 1987, Raquel Welch starred in the television drama Right to Die, an "unglamorous" role in which she portrayed a college professor and mother of two stricken with Lou Gehrig's disease, and asks to die with dignity.

Raquel Welch starred in the made-for-television films Scandal in a Small Town, Trouble in Paradise, and Torch Song.

In 1996, Raquel Welch joined the cast of the night-time soap opera Central Park West, after CBS had already slated it for cancellation, as creator Darren Star made a final attempt to save the show by boosting its ratings late in its first season.

Raquel Welch was a guest star on the American comedy series Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, playing Sabrina's flamboyant Aunt Vesta from the realm called the Pleasuredome.

Raquel Welch acted in the Season 8 finale of the comedy series Seinfeld, titled "The Summer of George", playing an exaggerated and highly temperamental version of herself.

In 2002, Raquel Welch co-starred in the PBS series American Family, a story about a Mexican American family in East Los Angeles, with Edward James Olmos.

In 2008, Raquel Welch appeared in Welcome to The Captain on CBS, playing a "sultry actress"; according to one critic, she was "spoofing herself".

Raquel Welch guest starred on CSI: Miami in 2012 and played Aunt Lucia in the 2013 Lifetime original movie House of Versace.

Raquel Welch played the mother-in-law of Barry Watson's character in a Canadian sitcom titled Date My Dad where she reunited with Robert Wagner on screen, five decades after starring together in The Biggest Bundle of Them All.

Raquel Welch was due to star in a 1982 adaptation of John Steinbeck's Cannery Row, but was abruptly fired by the producers a few weeks into production.

Studio executives claimed in testimony the reason Raquel Welch was following through with the trial was that she was an actress over 40 and generally actresses in that age range cannot get roles any more.

Also that year, Raquel Welch appeared in Tortilla Soup, a family comedy-drama inspired by Ang Lee's Eat Drink Man Woman, playing Hortensia, a domineering mother determined to marry the master chef who thinks he is losing his sense of smell and taste.

Raquel Welch starred in Forget About It, a mobster comedy in which Burt Reynolds, Robert Loggia, and Charles Durning competed for her affection.

Raquel Welch played a single billionaire grandmother in the romantic comedy How to Be a Latin Lover.

In December 1972, Raquel Welch made her nightclub debut at the Las Vegas Hilton; her act preceded Elvis Presley's.

Raquel Welch released the dance single "This Girl's Back In Town", which peaked at No 29 on Billboards dance club chart in 1988, along with a music video.

In December 1981, Raquel Welch starred on Broadway in Woman of the Year for two weeks, filling in for Lauren Bacall in the title role while Bacall was on vacation.

In 1975, Raquel Welch won a Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture Actress in a Musical or Comedy for The Three Musketeers.

Raquel Welch was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for her performance in the television drama Right to Die.

In 1996, Raquel Welch received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7021 Hollywood Boulevard.

Raquel Welch began a jewelry and skincare line, although neither of those ventures compared to the success of her wig collection HAIRuWEAR.

In January 2007, Raquel Welch was selected as the newest face of MAC Cosmetics Beauty Icon series.

Raquel Welch married her high school sweetheart, James Raquel Welch, in Las Vegas on May 8,1959.

Raquel Welch married publicist Patrick Curtis in Paris on February 14,1967, and they divorced on January 6,1972.

Curtis later claimed to the tabloids that Raquel Welch got an abortion during their marriage.

Spanish media reported that during the shooting of 100 Rifles in Spain in 1968, Raquel Welch, while married to Curtis, had a relationship with Spanish actor Sancho Gracia, who had a small role in the film, and that Raquel Welch's husband, upon finding out about the affair, chased Gracia at gunpoint through the hotel where they were staying in Aguadulce.

In early February 1983, while vacationing in Mustique, Raquel Welch suffered a miscarriage three months into her pregnancy.

Raquel Welch wed Richie Palmer, co-owner of Mulberry Street Pizzeria, on July 17,1999, at her home in Beverly Hills.

In 2011, Raquel Welch told Elle magazine she would not remarry.

Raquel Welch posed for Playboy in 1979, but she never did a fully nude shoot.

Raquel Welch declined to do complete nudity, and I yielded gracefully.

In 2014, during an appearance on The O'Reilly Factor, Raquel Welch described herself as being on the conservative side, attributing it to her upbringing and mother's Midwestern values.

In 2015 Raquel Welch attended a gathering for the Republican Jewish Coalition in Beverly Hills.

Raquel Welch supported the Vietnam War troops, appearing at United Service Organizations shows, often with Bob Hope.

Raquel Welch died from cardiac arrest on February 15,2023, at her home in Los Angeles.

At the time of her death, Raquel Welch was suffering from Alzheimer's disease.

Raquel Welch helped transform America's feminine ideal into its current state.

Raquel Welch is mentioned in "Unknown Stuntman", the theme song to The Fall Guy, starring Lee Majors, who recorded the song.

Raquel Welch is mentioned in the Al Jarreau song "Love Is Real" from the Grammy-winning 1980 album This Time, where Jarreau sings "Raquel and Redford are the tops".