Raquel Welch’s death in February 2023 shone a spotlight on a diverse career that popular culture had so often tried to reduce to a stone age fur bikini.
True, movies like 1 Million Years B.C. wouldn’t have been the same without Racquel Welch, but the Chicago-born star was about far more than running away from dinosaurs. She maintained a professionalism and a commitment to her roles throughout her career, demonstrated in her career choices and on-set behavior, even if some of her films never lived up to their potential.
She was never under any illusions about the sex symbol status that enabled her early career, and she often confronted the issue. She summed up her predicament in a 1974 interview with Rolling Stone Magazine.
“There was a huge discrepancy between the symbol – Raquel Welch – and what I could ever aspire to be for real. The stupidity of it is that once somebody says you’re something, you try to be it. That’s the stupidity. I fell into that trap for the first couple of years. It’s like being an ex-convict, I think.”
Later in the interview, the actor who found fame as an on-screen scientist shrunk to journey into the human body and put it more pithily “The mind is an erogenous zone.”
Whether appearing in romcoms, westerns, or high-concept science fiction, Welch consistently gave more than her legendary looks to the movies. These are the films that capture the best of Racquel Welch’s underrated career.
Fantastic Voyage (1966)
The movie that launched Welch’s career and is regarded as her best. It’s a high concept, brilliantly staged late B-Movie, where a miniaturized submarine crew enters a scientist’s body to repair damage to his brain. It won plaudits for its Oscar-winning special effects and stunning production design.
A Cold War sub-plot introduced an external terror to the dangers of the human body, which carried through its cast of brave adventurers — a mix of military personnel and scientists that included Welch as a medical assistant. Playing Cory Peterson would establish her as a watchable damsel in distress. Although the role saw her attacked by antibodies, it was just the medicine for Twentieth Century Fox, who gave her a contract.
Myra Breckinridge (1970)
Welch took the lead role in this adaptation of Gore Vidal’s satirical novel about a transgender woman’s attempt to usurp social patriarchy in Hollywood. Vidal’s story had been controversial when it was published two years before, and the movie attracted similar attention, particularly for its explicit sex scenes. What it didn’t pick up from its source was critical acclaim, although it subsequently built a cult following after being labeled one of the worst films ever made.
Still, it was a bold choice for Welch. A few years after her breakout, she campaigned for the much-discussed part hoping it would showcase her acting ability. She didn’t count on the unorthodox production and a movie that’s generally regarded as missing the novel’s wit and purpose.
100 Rifles (1969)
100 Rifles wasn’t Welch’s first Western — she’d made Bandolero! a year before, which Jerry Goldsmith also scored. On her second trip to the Wild West, Welch had the chance to act alongside Jim Brown and Burt Reynolds in an adaption of Robert MacLeod’s 1966 novel The Californio. The tale of a dysfunctional trio who become rebel leaders when they defend the Yaqui people against Mexican soldiers, some casting decisions reflected its era. However, director Tom Gries explained before production that he thought Welch “will prove in this film that she can act.”
Unfortunately, the production wasn’t the smoothest, and Welch had to work through a tense working atmosphere with Brown. In one of his New Beverly Cinema reviews, Quentin Tarantino called it a “shamefully wasted opportunity.”
One Million Years B.C. (1966)
The film that gave us the definitive image of Welch as a bikini-clad cavewoman. It was the image pinned to a million walls — not least a certain cell in The Shawshank Redemption. The actor’s 20th Century Fox contract was loaned to Hammer productions so she could headline their stop-motion departure from gothic horror.
It’s easy to dismiss the movie as a basic action romp with deadly turtles — Welch had three lines —but it’s also an undeniable piece of film history. It brought the actor to worldwide attention and would earn her fur/hide bikini its own Wikipedia page.
Tortilla Soup (2001)
In this English-speaking remake of the Taiwanese comedy-drama Eat Drink Man Woman, Welch played Hortensia, the visiting friend with her eyes set on semi-retired Mexican-American chef Martin Naranjo. The comedy successfully translated the feel-good story across cultures thanks to its brilliantly cast ensemble.
Welch stands out even in a line-up of brilliant actresses, including Tamara Mello, Elizabeth Peña, and Jacqueline Obradors.
Bedazzled (1967)
Many of Welch’s career milestones came in British movies, including this comedy that cemented her sex symbol status. Updating the old Faust morality tale to 1960s London, it was a showcase for comedy duo Peter Cook and Dudely Moore, who played the Devil and his unfortunate victim, respectively.
The Devil is assisted in his deliciously evil mission by sin-based helpers, including Welch’s Lust. She was iconic enough that the 2001 remake flipped the Devil’s gender. However, Harold Ramis’ version mainly highlighted how exquisite the original casting was.
The Three Musketeers (1973)
Richard Lester’s blockbuster retelling of Alexandre Dumas’s swashbuckling tale was a star-studded event. This version successfully upped the comedy, and remains the most enjoyable screen adaptation. While the Musketeers battled Charlton Heston’s villainous Cardinal Richelieu and Christopher Lee’s deadly Rochefort, Michael York’s D’Artagnan fell for Welch’s Constance Bonacieux, the Queen of France’s dressmaker who is crucial to stopping a plot to discredit the Royal Family.
D’Artagnan’s eyes and much of the attention may have been stolen by Faye Dunnaway’s Milady de Winter, but Welch was one of only two actors the producers insisted on casting. Despite leaving the film over creative differences at one point, she rejoined and went on to win a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy. Originally intended to run as an epic, the film was split in two, with The Four Musketeers released in 1975.
Hannie Caulder (1971)
Another Western, this time with Welch taking the lead as a frontier woman out for revenge after a gang murders her husband, assaults her, and leaves her for dead. Despite some odd tone shifts, this graphic and brutal piece is regarded more for its place in the movie canon than its filmmaking techniques.
In some ways, Hannie Caulder bridges the classic Western era and the savage later Westerns of the 1970s. If it seems particularly familiar, this was another Welch movie that significantly influenced Quentin Tarantino, inspiring the revenge plot of Kill Bill.
The Last of Sheila (1973)
Steven Sondheim’s only movie screenplay remains a highly influential whodunnit. Its fingerprints are all over the Knives Out series, including Glass Onion, in which the writer took a cameo shortly before his death. The movie sees a group of friends participate in an elaborate cruise ship game a year after the death of their mutual friend, gossip columnist Sheila Greene.
It was a rare original screenplay in the genre when big-budget Agatha Christie adaptations were wowing audiences. As with all whodunnits, the main ingredient is the ensemble cast, including Welch as actress Alice Wood, a character Sondheim later revealed had been based on the starlet herself. In the mid-1970s, Welch told the Washington Post she was particularly pleased with this acting role.
Legally Blonde (2001)
Hollywood didn’t tap Welch’s comic timing as it could have, but she did get the odd chance to shine, including an all-too-brief role as Mrs. Windham Vandermark in Legally Blonde. As ever, Welch lands a memorable turn as the elusive widow Elle Woods meets at a luxury spa.
Welch also showed she’d lost none of her knowledge of film, grasp of character, or attention to detail. She advised the cinematographer on lighting her courthouse scenes and even dressed herself.