Raquel Welch —PHOTO BY RUBEN V. NEPALES
LOS ANGELES—Many years later, I finally got to confess my boyhood crush on Raquel Welch. When I recently came face-to-face for the first time with the object of my adolescent fantasies, I wasted no time in telling her that.
Raquel, in a cream pantsuit and nude pumps, decided to sit on the table, her legs crossed. She was fully made up and coiffed—the very portrait of Hollywood glamour of yore. To deflect my overexcitement, I asked her if men still approach her and admit their infatuation with her, just like I did.
“Do you think they all do what you are doing?” Raquel asked back, with her smoky, sultry eyes—complete with false eyelashes—staring at me.
“Yes,” I quickly replied. I was surprised I still had a voice. And that I managed that one-syllable answer without stammering.
“They write me letters,” she said. “They do come up to me and say, ‘Oh, you were my crush and this and this. You were my dream girl.’ It’s a lot to take in (laughs). You don’t know if you feel worthy of that kind of admiration.” (In my mind: “Yes, you are!”)
The last of the Hollywood sex symbols, ranked among the sexiest stars of all time, added, “But on the other hand, it’s all nice, because we were talking about entertainment and that is what I guess I provided when I first started out, in ‘One Million Years BC.’ I was a fantasy figure. So I can’t put it down. ”
At 76 years old, she has been in show business for 54 years. Born Jo-Raquel Tejada to a Bolivian father and an English mother, the entertainer was the sex icon of the ’60s and ’70s, becoming the pin-up fantasy after Marilyn Monroe. Initially, her managers didn’t reveal that she was actually a single mother of two.
Starting with “One Million Years BC,” where her deer skin prehistoric bikini costume look ensnared the hearts and libidos of boys and men, Raquel conquered TV and film, and even sang and danced in stage shows. She’s still active in her career—she’s in the comedy, “How to Be a Latin Lover,” and in the TV pilot, “Date My Dad,” which costars Filipino-Canadian Zenia Marshall.
In “How to Be a Latin Lover,” she plays Celeste, a billionaire widow. She joins a cast that includes Salma Hayek, Rob Lowe and Eugenio Derbez, one of Latin America’s most popular stars, in the title role. “It was funny, audacious and crazy,” Raquel said of the movie directed by Ken Marino. “It wasn’t expected. That’s what I liked about it. Eugenio Derbez is fabulous, isn’t he? ”
Despite eventually tackling strong female roles, Raquel is stuck with the “sex symbol” tag. It doesn’t faze her.
“Everybody has different ideas of what sexy or attractive is and what isn’t,” said the Chicago native. “I was just grateful—if anything, having to do with a sex symbol image helped me forge a career. I wasn’t questioning it too much. I said, fine, I have another movie, another movie and another movie—and Dick Zanuck likes me over at Fox. I had a seven-picture deal over there. That was like hallelujah for me.
“I learned a lot while I was under contract at Fox. I don’t know about the sex symbol thing. Sometimes they call you that, and sometimes they don’t. I mean, do they call Charlize Theron a sex symbol? I think they might do that, yeah. She looks spectacular. She has a beautiful figure, and she moves so well. She’s elegant, and she is also an amazing actress. ”
Welch in “One Million Years BC”
She cited another actress. “And Angelina Jolie is a gorgeous woman and very sexy. But they didn’t call her a sex symbol.” When told that Angelina was also tagged as a sex icon, Raquel replied, “They did? Oh excuse me, I wasn’t there. I missed my pay for that day (laughs). ”
Among the men? “Well, there was Brad Pitt at one point (laughs). He’s still cute, gorgeous and hot.”
Switching up legs to cross, Raquel recounted how the onset of feminism impacted her. “I felt feminism coming in very strongly in the ’60s,” she began. “I was living in Great Britain. They (British people) were the ones who produced ‘One Million Years BC.’ They were instrumental in pushing that (sex symbol) image. I didn’t have anything to do with it. I came back from the Canary Islands, where we were shooting on the top of a volcano.
“When we arrived at Heathrow Airport, everybody knew who I was. It was shocking. I was just grateful for it, because that was what launched my career. But I started to know that there was this women’s movement going on. I didn’t fit into the mold that they had in mind for women.
“I might have been too sexy. I wasn’t their (feminists’) idea. I thought to myself, hello girls, I’m a mother, so you can relate to me. I may be in a skimpy bikini in ‘One Million Years BC,’ but I go home and raise two children. I have a career. I know what it’s like. So don’t turn your nose up at me (laughs). ”
One of her children, Tahnee Welch, is also an actress, with credits that include the two “Cocoon” movies by Ron Howard.
On how she keeps fit after all these years, Raquel answered, “Oh, my gosh. Maintaining your physical self is a big job. You have to be very disciplined to do it. For most people, it’s not pivotal to what they do in life, so they aren’t going to be training five days a week.
“But for me, it’s part of my stock and trade, so I do try to keep fit. My diet is very strict. Of course, I go off it, pig out and have all kinds of things that I’m not supposed to have. But then, you have to go on the wagon again. But that’s a dilemma for most women.”
She shared the challenge of being Raquel Welch. “When I go out in public, people recognize me. So then, I would carry on in the store and then they’d say, ‘Well, are you or aren’t you Raquel Welch?’ They weren’t sure, because when I first became famous, I didn’t realize that you had to dress up for everything (laughs).
“Not to a crazy degree. But if you’re walking around Beverly Hills, that’s going to happen. So, exercise, diet and all kinds of supplements (to keep fit). You need somebody to prescribe supplements for your joints and all the systems in your body. These nutrients do help enormously. ”
Raquel Welch in “How to Be a Latin Lover”
Laughing, she quipped how she ran out of supplements while she was taping “Date My Dad” in Canada. “I don’t know if you know this about the Canadians—they don’t let you send things like supplements or prescriptions. They hold onto it for weeks on end, then they fine you for bringing them in. I thought I was going to lose it. I said, oh my God, I’ll go to dust here any minute (laughs)!
“When I have a routine, I’m very disciplined,” she stressed. “I am a Virgo, honey, I can’t help it (laughs).” This Gemini nodded his head in complete understanding and agreement.
E-mail rvnepales_5585@yahoo.com. Follow him at https://twitter.com/nepalesruben.