Raquel Welch Her AMAZING UNTOLD STORY

AFTER A LUCKY BREAK MADE HER A SEX SYMBOL, SHE ROSE TO THE CHALLENGE AND BECAME A HOLLYWOOD LEGEND

-  LOUISE A. BARILE

Raquel Welch never left her Beverly Hills home looking sloppy. “I have to put myself together,” she said. “I will put on a little bit of eyeliner, a little blusher, a little lip gloss. It means you made a little bit of effort to face the world. You need a little armor or protection.”

From the moment she became famous on a poster for the 1966 film One Million Years B.C., Raquel was ready to exceed expectations and prove that she was no empty-headed sex symbol. “I made more than 45 feature films, tackled Broadway musicals, and had my successes,” noted the Golden Globe winner, who always refused to appear nude on screen. She became an icon on her own terms, but that didn’t mean that Raquel, a four-times divorced mother of two, got by without sacrifices.

The actress’ difficult childhood in Southern California likely fueled her ambition. Her Bolivia-born father, an aeronautics engineer, was a bully who lorded over his wife and three children. “A life of female servitude doesn’t appeal to me mainly because I saw my mother being taken for granted,” Raquel wrote in her 2010 memoir, Raquel: Beyond the Cleavage. She aspired to a better life and marriage for herself. “I wasn’t ever willing to settle for the dry, estranged relationship of my parents. I’m allergic to it.”

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