"The Most Desired Woman of the 1970s": Raquel Welch, the Actress Who Rose to Fame in a Bikini (27 photos)

American actress and singer Raquel Welch first drew public attention with a lead role in the 1966 film

Fantastic Voyage

. However, audiences around the world likely know her best for

One Million Years B.C.

from that same year, in which she spoke just three lines of dialogue while clad in a famous doe-skin bikini.





It was the release of that movie that catapulted Raquel Welch to international stardom, cementing her status as an iconic sex symbol of her era. The promotional shot of her in that bikini went on to become a bestselling poster.



Born Jo Raquel Tejada on September 5, 1940, in Chicago, she was the daughter of Armando Carlos Tejada Urquizo, a Bolivian aeronautical engineer, and Josephine Sarah Hall, an Englishwoman. She has a younger brother, James, and a younger sister, Gayle Carole.





When Raquel was two years old, the family relocated to San Diego, California. Showing a flair for the performing arts early on, she studied ballet until age 17, but gave it up after an instructor told her she lacked the ideal physique for a professional dancer.



Starting at 14, she began entering beauty pageants, regularly taking home top honors. Her parents divorced around the time she finished high school.



After graduating in 1958, she married her high school sweetheart, James Welch, a year later. She kept his last name following their divorce in 1964. The couple had two children, son Damon and daughter Latanne.



In total, Raquel Welch was married four times, though her final marriage to Richard Palmer also ended in divorce in 2008. In later interviews, the actress declared she had no intention of marrying again.



Welch attended San Diego State College, but as a divorced mother of two, she left before completing her degree. During that period, she participated in several local theater productions.



She also worked as a weather presenter for local television station KFMB. Following her divorce, she moved to Dallas, where she took jobs as a model for Neiman Marcus and as a waitress.



In 1963, she moved to Los Angeles and began auditioning for roles. She met Hollywood agent Patrick Curtis, a former child actor who became her manager. Together, they crafted her sex-symbol persona, dropping her birth surname Tejada to avoid being typecast as a Latina actress and taking the surname of her first husband.



Welch landed her first featured role in the 1965 film

A Swingin’ Summer

. That same year, she won a new star award and caught the eye of producer Saul David's wife, who recommended her to 20th Century Fox.



Welch was cast in a lead role in

Fantastic Voyage

, which launched her career into high gear. Following its success, Fox loaned her out to star in

One Million Years B.C.

, a remake of the 1940 film.



Appearing on screen in a simple fur bikini, Welch was hailed by enthusiastic critics as creating the "definitive look of the 1960s." In its review of the film,

The New York Times

called her "a marvelous breathing monument to womankind," noting that "though she has only three lines in the film, her striking figure in a fur bikini turned her into a star and the dream girl of millions of young men."



The publicity image for the film became a runaway bestselling poster, establishing Raquel Welch as a legendary sex symbol of her generation.





Driven by her popularity and striking looks,

Playboy

named her the "Most Desired Woman" of the 1970s.



In 1974, she won a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy for her portrayal of Constance in

The Three Musketeers

. She received another Golden Globe nomination for her performance in the 1987 television drama

Right to Die

.



In 1979, she posed for a

Playboy

pictorial without appearing fully nude. Hugh Hefner was initially frustrated by her refusal to strip down, but later conceded that Raquel Welch "is one of the sexiest women in the world without needing to take off all her clothes. She refused to disrobe, and I backed down. The resulting photos proved she was right."



Throughout her career, Welch consistently refused to do full nudity on screen. She once remarked: "What I do on screen is in no way equal to what I do in my private life. Off screen, I am reserved and modest—I don't care for fuss."