Good morning, it's Friday, Feb. 17, 2023, the day of the week when I reprise a quotation meant to be uplifting or educational. I have several such lines in mind today, all from the incandescent Raquel Welch, who died Wednesday, still "a bombshell" (as the New York Times assured its readers) at age 82.
Southern Methodist University journalism professor Rhonda Garelick, who pens a regular Times column, suggested that the movie star's passing invites us to contemplate "what happens to our sex symbols as they age."
Except that Raquel Welch didn't seem to age. Or maybe a better way of saying it is that she didn't age out of her role as an international sex symbol. "What is, after all, the cultural longevity of the bombshell, the femme fatale?" Garelick wrote. "We tend to assume that they relinquish this status. Ms. Welch did not. She maintained it, along with her dignity."
n the trailer to "One Million Years B.C.," a 1966 British remake of a 1940 United Artists picture, the man doing the voiceover intones, "Introducing the fabulous Raquel Welch, the sensational star discovery of this -- or any other -- year …"
The promo is a subtle sleight-of-hand. "One Million Years B.C." wasn't really the movie that "introduced" Welch to the movie-going public. In 1964 and 1965, she'd had cameos in a few movies and television shows, including an Elvis Presley beach movie. And as far as appearing in a starring role, that distinction belongs to "Fantastic Voyage," a Cold War sci-fi thriller released earlier in 1966 by 20th Century Fox.
"Fantastic Voyage," I'll say by way of digression, was pretty weak science fiction. Welch and assorted other characters -- and their U.S. Navy submarine -- are shrunk to the "size of a microbe" and inserted into the bloodstream of an imperiled CIA agent. Enough said.
"One Million Years B.C." holds up even less well. For starters, the special effects wouldn't fool a 6-year-old in this millennium. As for the story line, it made no sense even at the time, and must have driven science teachers nuts. An entire generation of American boys, distracted by Raquel Welch's curvy and barely clad body, grew up thinking that early humanoids fought dinosaurs, which is off by, oh, about 65 million years.
As for that stunning female figure, the studio put it in an iconic poster that is a collector's item to this day. And though Welch had only had three lines in that movie, they were enough: Almost overnight, she became a sensation.
Welch was born in Chicago in 1940 and christened Jo Raquel Tejada. Her Bolivian-born father was an aerospace engineer who moved his family to Southern California. As a young girl, she always gravitated toward the arts, dancing and singing and staging performances for her family. While in high school in La Jolla, she won the first of a string of beauty contests.
She would have a string of husbands, too. The first, James Welch, gave her a surname; the second, Patrick Curtis, helped her map out a career as a sex symbol. After stints as a local TV "weather girl," model, waitress, and San Diego State drama student, she landed some bit parts in Hollywood. The story goes that she was "noticed" by the wife of 20th Century Fox producer Saul David, who signed her to a contract. Once that happened there was no unnoticing her.
Along the way, Raquel Welch developed a reputation among (male) directors and (male and female) actors as being difficult to work with. Considering what she must have had to put up with, I don't doubt it. For starters, the studio tried to change her first name to "Debbie," if you can imagine that. Raquel successfully resisted that dumb idea, but her second husband talked her out of using Tejada, on the grounds that she'd be typecast as a Latina. She was typecast anyway.
On the first day of shooting "One Million Years B.C.," she approached the director, Don Chaffey, with some ideas about her character.
"Listen, Don, I've been studying the script and I was thinking …" before being cut off before she could finish her sentence. "You were thinking?" he sneered. "Don't."
So she toughened her skin and did battle with anyone she thought was trying to diminish her. She said she threw a frying pan at Jim Brown, the former Cleveland Browns football star-turned-actor, while making "100 Rifles," and that she hired a bodyguard to protect her on "The Last of Sheila," after director Herbert Ross allegedly struck her in the dressing room.
She made a good deal of money in Hollywood and was a celebrity for more than 45 years, but she never landed the role she craved -- one that would establish her as a serious actress.
"Myra Breckenridge," a 1970 film based on Gore Vidal's novel of the same name, might have been that vehicle -- but wasn't. Welch, in the title role, played a transgender woman who pretends to be her own widow. It was supposed to be a comedy, but the entire production was botched by a flaky British director who never worked in Hollywood again. It's considered one of the worst major motion pictures of all time. And the vibe on the set was hardly helped by Welch's feud with Mae West, who'd come out of retirement to make the picture and found herself arguing over wardrobe with West, who refused to shoot scenes with her.
Her second marriage fell apart two years later when she found out her second husband was stepping out on her. "I couldn't stand that my husband was being unfaithful," she said afterward. "I am Raquel Welch, understand?"
Yes, one can fathom her indignation. After all, in "Bandolero!" -- a 1968 western in which Welch plays a Mexican woman named Maria Stoner -- James Stewart, Dean Martin, and George Kennedy all fall in love with her. And I'm not counting her on-screen "Bandolero" husband, played by handsome Jock Mahoney, who is shot dead barely three minutes into the film. Welch handles her role with aplomb, especially the scene in which she warns Dean Martin and his gang (who've kidnapped her) that they have crossed the U.S. border into Mexico -- into "Bandolero" -- and that Mexican bandits who inhabit that land love nothing more than killing "gringos."
Martin notes that she doesn't seem too worried. With a smile, Maria replies, "I am not a gringo."
In 1973, she's reduced to playing the clumsy (but beautiful) Constance Bonacieux for laughs in "The Three Musketeers." And by the late 1970s, she kept her career going with guest appearances on popular television shows. It turned out she had a knack for comedy. In a memorable 1979 "Mork & Mindy" episode, she plays "Captain Nirvana," who is trying to torture Mork (Robin Williams) into betraying humankind. Dressed as a sexpot, Captain Nirvana's idea of torture is to pleasure Mork in a hot tub. He resists, hilariously.
By then, her reputation was that she'd spend hours on her own hair and makeup and was, well, something of a diva. Her saving grace through it all was self-awareness. Knowing that doing bit parts on TV was a comedown for her, "Mork & Mindy" casting director Joel Thurm was understanding.
"This would have been an unsettling time for anyone in her position, and she acted out a bit during shooting, taking up extra time in hair and makeup, staying in her trailer a bit longer than necessary, and one day flat-out refusing to wear a certain costume," Thurm wrote later. And he couldn't help but be charmed when the shooting was over and she told the cast, "‘Look, I know I was a bit of a pain in the ass, but wasn't I worth it?"
Still, the big break eluded her.
One last chance came in 1981, when she landed the female lead opposite Nick Nolte in "Cannery Row," an adaptation of John Steinbeck's novel. This project, too, was doomed by poor directing and a cumbersome script, but when it was finished, Welch was no longer on the project at all.
She was fired only weeks into the production by MGM studio head David Begelman and replaced by Debra Winger. It quickly dawned on Welch that Begelman had planned this all along. MGM used her name to gain financing for the picture, then replaced her with a much younger actress at a much lower salary. She sued for breach of contract. At trial, MGM's lawyers said it had happened because Welch was "temperamental." This wasn't untrue, but it was a known fact when they gave her the role.
The Los Angeles jurors almost certainly knew David Begelman was a liar and embezzler who had been ousted from Columbia Pictures a couple of years earlier for forging checks allegedly paid to actors. In any event, the jury concurred with Welch's lawyer Edward Mosk, who said in his closing argument that the case was a classic example of "arrogant corporate executives acting without regard for human beings."
They awarded her $10.8 million in damages. Welch raised her arms, fists clenched when the verdict was read. "I never expected such an overwhelming victory as this," she told reporters outside the courtroom. "I hope that women in and out of Hollywood stand up for their rights when they feel they've been wronged."
The saga was bittersweet for Welch, as she later told The Hollywood Reporter. It took four years to go to trial and another two years before the appellate courts affirmed the finding. "I needed to clear my name," she said. "But since that time, I've never starred in a major motion picture. That's not the outcome I was looking for."
(MGM didn't fare much better: The actress they fired ended up making more money from "Cannery Row" than the studio.)
Eventually, Raquel Welch learned to laugh at herself -- and do it onscreen. In an absurd 1997 "Seinfeld" episode, she plays herself as not only a diva, but one with a violent temper: She puts Kramer and Elaine in the hospital.
As Welch aged, she grew not only nostalgic, but also philosophical. Into her late 70s, people would send her "One Million Years B.C." posters and ask her to sign them. She always obliged. "My whole career has been about being noticed, just like any other actor or actress, so I am grateful that people are still interested," she told the Scottish Statesman. "I'm often asked if I get sick of talking about that bikini, but the truth is, I don't. It was a major event in my life so why not talk about it?"
"I remember James Stewart telling me a long time ago never to avoid your fans or the things that your fans like about you," she added. "It was good advice."
As to her secret of aging so well, she didn't dwell on it, though she surely did enjoy it. "I'm just a normal person who takes care not to over-indulge in eating or anything that challenges your health," she said. "I get a little exercise and look after my skin. As long as I still look like Raquel Welch, I'm happy."
Who wouldn't be? But since she was 30, Raquel Welch knew that her looks also made her a target. And she was determined not to just stand there and take the arrows.
"I think there's a stigma for glamorous actresses like [Marilyn] Monroe and [Jean] Harlow," she told the Philadelphia Daily News in 1970. "They get the reputation of being empty and vapid. I see no reason why glamorous girls can't be sensitive, intelligent and make something of herself. And, just as important, have that incorporated as being part of the image."
And that's our quote of the week.
Carl M. Cannon is the Washington bureau chief for RealClearPolitics. Reach him on Twitter @CarlCannon.
