ACCLAIMED ACTRESS RAQUEL WELCH, A FORMER SAN DIEGAN, DIES AT 82

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By Miriam Raftery

Photo, left: Racquel Tejada Welch in 1976.

February 15, 2023 (San Diego) – Famed actress Raquel Welch, an international sex symbol who also drew acclaims and a Golden Globe award for her acting talent, died today at her home in Los Angeles after a brief illness at age 82. She was a star of movies, TV and Broadway, but her childhood and first acting jobs were here in San Diego County.

Born Jo Raquel Tejada in Chicago, Welch moved with her family to San Diego when she was two years old. She grew up in La Jolla and began winning beauty pageants at age 14. While still in high school, she was named Miss San Diego – Fairest of the Fair – at the San Diego County Fair in Del Mar. She attended San Diego State College (now SDSU) on a theater scholarship and married her high schools sweetheart, and had roles in several local theater productions.

She later became a weather presenter for KFMB, the CBS station ion San Diego, before moving with her husband and two children to Dallas, where she worked as a model and cocktail waitress before stardom struck.

She had several small roles in films including an Elvis Presley movie, as well as parts in TV shows such as "Bewitched" and "McHale’s Navy" before being cast in a lead role in the sci-fi movie “Fantastic Voyage,” which made her a star. But it was her role in “One Million Years B.C.” and her iconic pose in a doe-skin bikini that made her a pin-up girl and vaulted her to international fame (photo, right).

She later portrayed strong female characters, breaking out of the stereotype as a sex symbol.  In 1974 she won a Golden Globe Award for best actress in a musical or comedy for her performance in “The Three Musketeers," later also starting in "The Four Musketeers."

She starred alongside many of Hollywood’s leading men and broke numerous taboos. In “100 Rifles,” a 1969 Western, she engaged in onscreen interracial intimacy. In “Myra Breckenridge” in 1970, she portrayed a transsexual heroine.

Also a Broadway actress, she starred in “Woman of the Year” and “Victor/Victoria.

She received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and a Golden Globe nomination for her performance in the 1987 TV drama “Right to Die,” portraying a woman with Lou Gehrig’s disease. 

She went on to act in many other movies and TV shows. Welch also performed a one-woman nightclub musical act in Los Angeles for many years. She also launched a lien of beauty and fitness products. In addition, she performed in USO shows to  entertain U.S. troops during the Vietnam War.

She married and divorced three times.  She is survived by two children, Damon Welch and Latanne “Tahnee” Welch.”

Photo, left: Raquel Welch in 2010, by Justin Hoch, Creative Commons 2.0 license.

 

 

 


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