LATINOPIA CINEMA RAQUEL WELCH – SEX SYMBOL, ACTRESS, ROLE MODEL

RAQUEL WELCH: International sex symbol, Award-winning actress, and Latina role Model

by Dr. Frank Javier Garcia Berumen

Raquel Welch was the biggest Latina female film star since Rita Hayworth. She was bigger-than-life at her peak, and a legend in her own time. But she was more than that, a Latina role model who survived being blackballed by Hollywood studio moguls; and lived to live a normal and scandal-free life.

She was born Jo Raquel Tejada on September 5, 1940, in Chicago, Illinois. Her father was Armando Carlos, an aeronautical engineer from La Paz, Bolivia, (who is said to have some indigenous roots). Her mother was Josephine Sarah Hall, who was of English ancestry. Raquel’s cousin was Lidia Gueller Tejada, who became Bolivia’s first female president. Raquel had a younger brother and sister.

Her family moved to Sand Diego, California, when she was two years old. From an early age, she wanted to be a performer, studied ballet, won numerous beauty contests, but nevertheless, went on to graduate with honors from La Jolla High School in 1958. By then, her parents were divorced, and she went on to win a theater arts scholarship at California State College

Raquel married her high school sweetheart James Welch, and kept his surname the rest of her life, long after they divorced. She earned several theater roles locally, and in 1959 played the title role of Ramona, in the Ramona Pageant, based on the novel by Helen Hunt Jackson.

At this point, divorced and with two children, she earned employment as a local television weather presenter, model, and cocktail waitress. During this time, she met former child actor and agent James Curtis, who was determined to make Raquel a sex symbol. He advised her to keep the Welch surname, in order to circumvent Hollywood’s persistent stereotyping.

Raquel made her debut in the film A House Is Not a Home (1964) with Robert Taylor; and the Elvis Presley musical Roustabout (1964). Soon thereafter, she earned bit parts on television and the variety show Hollywood Palace. Her featured role in the film A Swinging Summer (1965), led to Life magazine layout; and a recommendation by the wife of film producer Saul David, of 20^th Century Fox. The studio gave her a non-exclusive seven-year contract. She refused to renamed “Debbie” or “Rachel,” and was adamant on keeping her ethnic name Raquel.

She played her first female lead in the ground-breaking sci-fi film Fantastic Voyage (1966), opposite Stephen Boyd, playing a member of a medical team. The film was a hit and it she became a “star.” She played prehistoric maiden in the film One Million B.C. (1966), in which, her two-piece deer skin bikini, created a sensation around the world. She became best-selling pin-up girl and the sex symbol of the turbulent sixties and beyond.

During this time, she made a series of films (all shot abroad) exploiting her stunning beauty and figure during this time: Shoot Louder, louder… I Don’t Understand (1966) with Marcello Mastroianni; The Oldest Profession (1967); The Biggest Bundle of Them All (1968), a heist film with Edward G. Robinson and Robert Wagner; Fathom (1967), a spy film; and Bedazzled (1967), a comedy that spoofed the Faust legend, with Dudley Moore.

Returning to the United States, she embarked in a series of A-films, which proved successful at the box-office: Bandolero! (1968), a western in which she played a Mexican widow, opposite James Stewart and Dean Martin; the film noir drama Lady in Cement (1968), with Frank Sinatra; and 100 Rifles (1969), a western set during the Mexican Revolution, but shot in Spain with Burt Reynolds and Jim Brown. Raquel played a Yaqui indigenous woman resisting the genocidal war waged by dictator Porfirio Diaz.

Tired, bored, and frustrated, by her stereotypical roles as a sex symbol, Raquel lobbied and won the role as a transsexual protagonist in Myra Breckinridge (1970) based on Gore Vidal’s best seller, opposite the temperamental Mae West (who was long-past her prime). The film was plagued with temperamental conflict with Miss West; and the mediocrity of the finished film, resulted in a box-office disaster.

As a result, Raquel’s career began to slide downhill. She a made a television special in 1970, entitled Raquel, which earned high rating; and then starred in another film flop entitled The Beloved (1970). Her career rebounded with the cult western Hannie Caulder (1971), in which she played a woman in search of vengeance, after the murder of her husband. In 1972, Raquel played a down-and-out roller derby skater in the offbeat Kansas City Bomber, about a working-class woman, trying to balance her difficult profession with failing personal life. It was the first time that she won rave notices on her acting, instead of her looks. However, in the same year, she co-starred with Richard Burton in Bluebeard, a critical and box-office failure.

However, the year 1973, proved to be a banner year for Raquel Welch. She co-starred in the whodunnit drama The Last of Sheila, opposite an ensemble cast that included James Mason, James Coburn, Richard Benjamin, and Dyan Cannon. The film proved to be one of her best films and was both a commercial success. She was then cast as the beautiful, but bumbling Constance, who loves d’Artagnan (Michael York) in Richard Lester’s delightful The Three Musketeers (1973), based on the famous Alexander Dumas novel. Raquel excelled in the top-notch cast that included Charlton Heston, Faye Dunaway, Richard Chamberlain, and Oliver Reed. Her role won her the Golden Globe award for Best Actress.

So much footage had been shot for the film, that the producers decided to make two films, the second being The Four Musketeers with the same cast. Soon, lawsuits by actors, and other film personnel demanded monetary compensation. The Screen Actors Guild ruled that all future contracts needed to include the “Salkind clause” (named so after the producers Illya and Alexander Salkind), which states that a single film, could not be divided, into two films without compensation and prior agreement.

Both films proved to be huge critical and commercial successes and benefitted by Raquel’s wonderful performance. They role became one of her one of her most memorable roles. Other successful films followed.

In 1982, MGM hired Raquel (now 40 years old) for the adaptation of John’s novel Cannery Row. However, only weeks into production she was fired; and replaced by Debra Wringer (who was 25 years old). She sued the studio for “breach of contract.” Raquel said, “I just wanted to clear my reputation and get back to my work in movies.” [1] She stated to the press that the studio had hired her in order to get financing of the film; and then fired her. At the end, the jury ruled in Raquel’s favor and awarded her $10.9 million dollars. The judgment was upheld on appeal in 1990. The Cannery Row film was a flop; and she in fact, made more money out of the case, than the film did.

However, despite her legal victory, Raquel was effectively blackballed in the film industry for the rest of her life. She was never able again, to play a lead role in a theatrical film.

Despite the setback, she hunkered down and turned to other entertainment venues: a nightclub act, theatre, and television. In 1981, she replaced Lauren Bacall on Broadway in Women of the Year; and she returned to Broadway in 1997 for Victor/Victoria, in the title role originally played by Julie Andrews and Liza Minnelli. Both were critical and commercial successes.

In 1984, she released the Raquel Welch Total Beauty and Fitness book and video.

On television, Raquel she starred in several television film, specials and guest-starred appearances in several hit shows. One of her most evocative films was the title role of Far Walks Woman (1982), in which she played an indigenous woman in the 1800s, trying to survive the national policy of extinction or reservation against Indians. Although panned by the critics, the film became the highest rated TV of the year. Another highlight was Right to Die (1987), for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress.

In 2001, she was honored by the Imagen Foundation Lifetime Award for her support of Latino heritage during her career. In 2010, she published her autobiography entitled Raquel: Beyond the Cleavage (Weinstein Publishers).

As a child, Raquel would say later, that her father never emphasized her Bolivian heritage, perhaps in order to protect her from the rampant discrimination in our society. However, she made a consistent effort to return to her ethnic image on film. In 2001, Raquel played Hortensia in Maria Ripol’s Tortilla Soup about a Mexican American family in East Los Angeles. In 2002, she played Tia Dora in Gregory Nava’s American Family (PBS). Nava, had known her, when they were growing up in San Diego area. He convinced her to take the role, and told her, that she reminded him of a “beautiful tia” in his family.

In 2017, Raquel played a grandmother Celeste Birch, who becomes the target of Eugenio Derbez’s romantic conquest in the Latino-themed How to Be a Latin Lover. It would be Raquel’s last theatrical film

She summed up her image as a sex symbol by saying, “I was not brought up to be a sex symbol. The fact that I became one is probably the loveliest, most glamorous, and fortunate misunderstanding.” [2]

When she was asked at one time, why she had survived as a sex symbol, as many, such a Marilyn Monroe, and others had been destroyed by suicide, bankruptcy, and scandal, she said that it was due to having “a loving family.”

Raquel Welch (Jo Raquel Tejada) died after a short illness, on February 15, 2023.

Raquel Welch changed the image of “sex symbols.” Unlike, the over-sexed “blonde bombshell,” of the past, she represented the beautiful women, who was well-grounded, self-sufficient, who loved and was loved; but who, was determined not to become a victim or a play thing.

Rest in Peace Jo Raquel Tejada.

________________________________________

Copyrighted March 25, 2023 by Frank Javier Garcia Berumen. All rights reserved. All images are in the public domain.

Dr. Frank Javier Garcia Berumen is an educator and writer. His latest books include Edward R. Roybal: The Struggle for Mexican American Political Empowerment (Bilingual Education Services); Latino Image Makers of Hollywood (McFarland & Co., Inc.); and American Image Makers of Hollywood (McFarland and Co., Inc.).

[1] AP (June 25, 1986) “Raquel Welch Wins $10.8 Million Judgment.”

[2] Burmingham, John. (September 3, 2018). Raquel: A Life in Pictures. The Wayback Machine.