Raquel Welch has died at the age of 82 after a short illness, her family members have confirmed.
She was born as Jo-Raquel Tejada in Chicago, Illinois on September 5, 1940 (perBritannica).
She took dance lessons as a child and became a cheerleader in high school.
She also performed in school plays.
Welch capitalized on her good looks through her participation in beauty pageants in California.
She graduated from La Jolla High School.
Welch moved to Hollywood in 1963 and shortly after landed a manager (viaFandango).
In 1964, she made her feature debut in the Elvis Presley film “Roustabout.”
The actress revealed details of that very first film experience, as reported byElvis Presley Music.
“I was a bit player in the opening moment,” said Welch.
“Like many adolescents ofthe ’50s, I had been completely gaga over Elvis.
It seemed like he was more packaged.
It was a little shocking to me because it was a whitewashed, cleaned-up Elvis.
They took all the sex out of him!”
The resulting movie stills made her a sensation and cemented her sex symbol image.
The film, however, was only a modest success, but other film roles were to come.
“It broke new ground,” she later toldVarietyof the film.
“He never spoke any Spanish in the home, so as not to have us have an accent.
We never were in a neighborhood where there were other Latinos around.
I didn’t know any Latin people,” she said in an interview withThe New York Times.
In a way, he didn’t have a choice, the sex symbol continued.
There was a sense of shame on his part, of the confusion and the prejudice around against Latins.
So he suffered a great deal.
My suffering is more of a kind of psychological feeling of not knowing who I am.
Later in her career, she began to embrace her heritage more and started to study Spanish.
Her father had named her Raquel after his mother, and she wanted to keep it.
“They wanted to change it and I was not happy at all.
I did really feel like Raquel.”
Welch didn’t restrict herself to the screen, though.
Decades into her career, she would prove her talent on the stage.
In 1959 at the age of 18, Raquel Welch married her high school sweetheart James Welch.
The couple divorced in 1961.
She went on to marry Patrick Curtis in 1969.
That marriage lasted through 1972.
In 1980 she married Andre Weinfeld, and that union lasted for ten years through 1990.
Almost a decade later, in 1999, she wed Richard Palmer.
The couple separated in 2003 and later divorced.
Alas, it wasn’t to be.
Welch revealed her theory about why her relationships didn’t last in an interview with theMirror.
“They were swanning around being married to Raquel Welch,” she said.
“I never did get it right.
Welch is survived by her two children herdaughter, Tahnee, and her son, Damon.
