Actress Raquel Welch died Wednesday, her representative confirmed to Fox News Digital. She was 82.
The superstar catapulted to fame in the 1960s with “Fantastic Voyage” and “One Million Years B.C.”
“Raquel Welch, the legendary bombshell actress of film, television and stage, passed away peacefully early this morning after a brief illness,” her rep, Steve Sauer, said. “The 82-year-old actress burst into Hollywood in her initial roles in ‘One Million [Years] B.C.’ and ‘Fantastic Voyage.’”
“Her career spanned over 50 years starring in over 30 films and 50 television series and appearances. The Golden Globe winner, in more recent years, was involved in a very successful line of wigs. Raquel leaves behind her two children, son Damon Welch and her daughter, Tahnee Welch.”
Welch starred alongside some of Hollywood’s leading men through the years, including Frank Sinatra, Robert Wagner, James Stewart, Dean Martin and Burt Reynolds.
RAQUEL WELCH REMEMBERED BY HOLLYWOOD AFTER DEATH AT 82: ‘PROFESSIONAL AND GLAMOROUS BEYOND BELIEF’
Raquel Welch died Wednesday after a brief illness. She was 82. (Getty Images)
Raquel Welch starred in dozens of film and television roles throughout decades in the entertainment industry. (Frederick M. Brown)
“Word today that actress and sex symbol Raquel Welch has died. She passed away earlier today after a brief illness, that’s all we know, but there was nothing brief about her life or impact on Hollywood,” Neil Cavuto said while paying tribute to the late actress on “Your World.”
“Men ogled her, fellow stars clamored to be in movies with her – a lot of movies. From ‘Fantastic Voyage’ to ‘Bedazzled’ to ‘One Million Years B.C.’ and ‘The Three Musketeers’ which personified pretty much her sense of humor. But Welch personified something else – beauty, and she knew it. ‘Time’ magazine once called her the most beautiful woman on the planet, ‘Empire’ magazine one of the 100 sexiest stars in film history, and TMZ one of the most sought after female stars throughout the 1960s and 70s.”
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Cavuto said Raquel was “also one of the most timeless. Maybe because she’s seen through all of those decades almost ageless. She was as meticulous about her image as she was mysterious in her interviews. I had the pleasure of seeing that firsthand myself.”
“She was a remarkable woman who stood the test of time, maybe because she somehow seemed to stop time,” Cavuto said. “That is until, sadly, today.”
RAQUEL WELCH’S LIFE IN PICTURES
Her role as “Loana the Fair One” in “One Million Years B.C.,” in which she rocked a “prehistoric” bikini, almost didn’t happen as Welch had zero interest in making a “dinosaur movie.”
“I told [Fox’s studio head] Dick Zanuck I didn’t think I was going to do it because it was a dinosaur movie and I didn’t want to be caught dead in a dinosaur movie,” Welch told Fox News Digital. “And he was not sympathetic to that.
“He said, ‘No, you’re going to do it, Raquel. And listen, Raqui, you’re going to become a huge star.’ I said, ‘What? What am I even going to wear? What happened in dinosaur time?’ … He said, ‘Don’t worry, they’ll figure something out.’ And they sure did.”
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Reluctantly, the then-26-year-old, who had already worked alongside her teen idol, Elvis Presley, in 1964’s “Roustabout,” agreed to take on the role. Welch was sent far away from Hollywood, specifically the volcanic Canary Islands.
Welch became a sex symbol in the 1960s. (Avalon / File)
“We were so far from civilization,” she recalled. “I mean, there was a hotel at the bottom of the volcano near the sea. And I was at the top. And it was snowing.”
Welch, who was filmed wearing the skimpy costume during severe weather conditions, developed tonsillitis that she insisted became worse with time.
“I had already so much penicillin when I was wearing the fur bikini that I almost died,” she claimed. “… I had to rush, turn my car around and head right back to the doctor’s office, just run upstairs, jump in the elevator and all that.
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“And I barely got there. They had to shoot me with an antidote. Otherwise, I would have died. It was a really rough shoot, man. Really rough. And then I came to London and everybody knew who I was.”
Welch earned a Golden Globe for best actress in a comedy after starring in 1974’s “The Three Musketeers.” She revealed that winning the award was one of her proudest career achievements.
Welch starred on the small screen, too, and was proud of her self-titled line of wigs. (Vera Anderson / File)
“Every single [film] contributed to my [transition],” she told Fox News Digital. “I played a lot of action figures, like in Westerns … I carried a gun; I was a very formidable woman who could handle herself, who could ride and shoot. … I also showed myself in a lot of different periods of time. … I worked in Spain for a lot of the Westerns, which is where most American Westerns were filmed.”
The legendary bombshell, who was born Jo Raquel Tejada in Chicago, Illinois, married high school sweetheart James Welch in 1959. They had two children and later divorced in 1964.
She married Patrick Curtis in 1967, a union which ended in divorce five years later. In 1980, she married producer André Weinfeld. Their divorce was finalized in 1990.
The Playboy cover girl walked down the aisle for the last time in 1999 and married Richard Palmer. Her fourth and final divorce was in 2003, and reportedly later declared she would never marry again.
Welch is survived by her two children from her first marriage, son Damon and daughter Tahnee.
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Fox News Digital’s Stephanie Nolasco contributed to this report.
