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Raquel Welch, actress and ’60s sex symbol dead at 82

    Raquel Welch, actress and ’60s Sex symbol is dead at 82

    I was saddened to hear that Raquel Welch passed away at the age of 82. As a kid, I enjoyed movies with dinosaurs. Like any male who was my age at the time, the main attraction of One Million Years B.C. (1966) was Raquel Welch, the dinosaurs were just a backdrop. Despite the fact that a fur bikini makes no sense, Welch’s iconic attire shot her squarely into Hollywood’s sex-symbol pantheon.

    I enjoyed her in the classic Irwin Allen sci-fi classic Fantastic Voyage (1966). Her voluptuous beauty always stood in the way of juicier prominent serious roles. She played Queenie in a loosely based version of The Wild Party (1975) book by Joseph Moncure March’s narrative poem of the same name. She also played a lesser-known role with Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr in the farcical black comedy film The Magic Christian (1969) as the Priestess of the Whip.

    Excerpt from the CBS television special “Raquel!”, recorded on April 26, 1970. Location: “Ruta de la Amistad”, built for the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City, Mexico.

    Fun Fact: One Million Years B.C. made her a leading sex symbol of her time. Further, in 2011 Welch’s B.C. bikini was ranked in the “Top Ten Bikinis in Pop Culture” by Time magazine.