The actor Raquel Welch has died. She was 82.
The web site TMZ first reported the information, citing members of the family who mentioned Welch died on Wednesday after a brief sickness.
Welch’s supervisor confirmed her dying to the AFP Information company in an emailed assertion and mentioned she died peacefully early on Wednesday morning after “a short sickness”, with out offering additional particulars.
The actor turned a global icon after showing in a deerskin bikini within the 1966 British fantasy journey movie One Million Years BC.
Whereas the movie obtained mediocre critiques, Welch’s cavewoman picture on its poster turned a part of cinema historical past.
Welch, a Golden Globe award winner, starred in additional than 30 movies, together with Fantastic Voyage and The Three Musketeers, in addition to some 50 tv collection in a profession spanning 5 a long time.
Born Jo-Raquel Tejada in Chicago in 1940, to a Bolivian father and an American mom, Welch rose to fame and intercourse image standing beneath her new title within the Nineteen Sixties.
In 2002, she informed the New York Occasions she was proud to acknowledge her Latino roots.
“I’m joyful to acknowledge it and it’s lengthy overdue and it’s very welcome,” she said. “There’s been sort of an empty place right here in my coronary heart and likewise in my work for a protracted, very long time.”
She additionally mentioned that when she set out as an actor, she was informed “that if I needed to be typecast, I might play into” her Hispanic background.
“You simply couldn’t be too completely different. My first massive breakthrough half in One Million Years BC, they died my hair blond. It’s a advertising and marketing factor.”
In a uncommon current interview, with the Scottish Sunday Post in 2017, Welch mentioned her two 1966 hits “made an enormous distinction to my profession. In a single day, I discovered myself in demand. Earlier than that I used to be not rather more than an additional.”
Subsequent main roles included the title position in Myra Breckinridge (1970) and a key half in The Three Musketeers (1973) and The 4 Musketeers: Milady’s Revenge (1974). She additionally had a memorable cameo on the TV sitcom Seinfeld, within the episode The Summer of George (1997).
Welch mentioned her first ambition had been to be a ballet dancer, solely to study at 17 that she “actually didn’t have the determine for ballet”.
She mentioned she didn’t thoughts being extensively recognized for the fur bikini she wore in One Million Years BC.
“I’m typically requested if I get sick of speaking about that bikini,” she mentioned. “However the fact is, I don’t. It was a significant occasion in my life so why not speak about it?
“Nearly day-after-day I get copies of the photograph despatched to me for an autograph. I will need to have checked out that photograph a million instances.
“I keep in mind James Stewart telling me a very long time in the past by no means to keep away from your followers or the issues that your followers like about you. It was good recommendation.”
Nevertheless, she did focus on how arduous it was to keep away from being typecast, writing in her 2010 autobiography Past the Cleavage that “all else could be eclipsed by this bigger-than-life intercourse image”.
She continued to behave in main movies, starring in Hollywood’s first interracial intercourse scene with Jim Brown in 100 Rifles, and as a transgender heroine within the express Myra Breckinridge.
She gained the Golden Globe for finest actress in a comedy or musical for The Three Musketeers, through which she performs the queen’s dressmaker.
Whereas filming Cannery Row in 1982, Welch was fired for insisting on doing her hair and make-up at residence. She sued MGM studios for breach of contract, finally profitable a $15m settlement.
A lover of yoga, Welch later launched herself into the enterprise of wellbeing, publishing her Whole Magnificence and Health program in 1984.
Having lengthy hidden her Latino origins, as a chic 60-something she took on Hispanic roles within the American Household collection on PBS in 2002 and Tortilla Soup in 2001.
In 2008 and aged 68 she divorced her fourth husband, Richard Palmer, who was 14 years her junior.
In later years, Welch continued to behave often, but in addition developed her personal line of wigs, hair items and hair extensions.
She is survived by her son Damon Welch and her daughter Tahnee Welch.
