{"id":1270,"date":"2012-02-05T15:09:57","date_gmt":"2012-02-05T21:09:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/?p=1270"},"modified":"2012-02-05T15:09:57","modified_gmt":"2012-02-05T21:09:57","slug":"raquel-welchcinematic-goddess","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/?p=1270","title":{"rendered":"Raquel Welch:Cinematic Goddess"},"content":{"rendered":"

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She had a shelf full of beauty-contest prizes \u2014 Miss Photogenic, Miss La Jolla, Miss Contour. There had been modeling for Nieman Marcus, extra work and even a stint as the \u201cweather girl\u201d on a local San Diego morning show.<\/p>\n

To a mid-\u201960s movie studio, she seemed like a good candidate for a bare-bones contract and some beach party movies.<\/p>\n

But 20th Century Fox had just one tiny concern. Her name. Particularly her first name, which they said no one could pronounce.<\/p>\n

Had she considered, maybe, \u201cDebbie\u201d?<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Debbie,\u2019\u201d Raquel Welch says now, laughing, almost 50 years later. \u201cI said, \u2018I\u2019m sorry, that is so not me. I\u2019m not a Debbie. I\u2019m Raquel. I\u2019ve always been Raquel. I think it\u2019s a pretty name and you know what? If I do well, then people will remember it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

And people did \u2014 along with her great look, dazzling smile and unapologetic drive.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s carried her through a long career in Hollywood, the subject of a Film Society of Lincoln Center retrospective starting Friday. And it made her a genuine Latina Hollywood star \u2014 the first since Rita Hayworth, and a smoky explosion in a decade of pale blondes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was nobody else who looked like her,\u201d says Josh Strauss, a Film Society programming associate. \u201cShe was just organically beautiful. \u2026 What started it for me as a kid was \u2018Kansas City Bomber\u2019 but really \u2014 what kid wouldn\u2019t love Raquel Welch?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the studio was just looking for someone they could put on a lot of provocative movie posters,\u201d says Lee Pfeiffer, co-author of the upcoming book \u201cCinema Sex Sirens\u201d and editor-in-chief of the magazine Cinema Retro. \u201cShe proved she was a lot more than that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Welch, 71, grew up as Raquel Tejada in San Diego. Her mother was Irish, with roots going back to the Colonial days; her father was Bolivian, an aeronautical engineer with General Dynamics.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy father was very, very strict,\u201d she remembers. \u201cYou did not want to cross him. But I remember when I was very young he took me to Laurence Olivier\u2019s \u2018Hamlet\u2019 and \u2018Prince of Foxes\u2019 with Tyrone Power. And I just fell in love. … The whole thing of getting into costume and performing was kind of wonderful to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Later, Welch got a theater scholarship to San Diego State \u2014 but soon married a handsome fellow student, James Welch and, in quick succession, had two babies. She left college for the TV gig; when her husband objected to her ambitions she left him, too, taking the kids. Eventually, she ended up in Los Angeles, and on that Fox lot, being told things would really be a whole lot easier as a \u201cDebbie.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think they wanted to Anglicize me a little,\u201d she said. \u201cThey never said, \u2018Look, we want to downplay this Hispanic thing.\u2019 But it was hard to cast me. The girl-next-door parts \u2014 in our culture, she\u2019s blonde, she\u2019s Doris Day, or now Jennifer Aniston. I was a little too \u2014 exotic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her body of work<\/p>\n

Her first good-sized role came in \u201cFantastic Voyage,\u201d as part of a special team \u201cminiaturized\u201d and sent inside a scientist\u2019s body to operate. Then the studio loaned her out to England\u2019s Hammer films, for the prehistoric epic \u201cOne Million Years B.C.,\u201d in which the second-best special effect was Ray Harryhausen\u2019s prehistoric beasties.<\/p>\n

The best special effect, of course, turned out to be Welch\u2019s itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny, woolly-mammoth fur bikini.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat thing never did fit right,\u201d she grumbles about the famous two-piece. \u201cIt was always getting wet, and the wardrobe people would try to make it keep its shape, and sometimes it would shrink, and sometimes we\u2019d have to sort of wrap it around me to make it work.\u201d<\/p>\n

It worked, all right. An early shot of Welch wearing it and looking vaguely awestruck left millions of males equally impressed, and became an iconic pin-up, seen everywhere from dorm-room walls to Tim Robbins\u2019 cell in \u201cThe Shawshank Redemption.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we finally came back to London to see that poster and everything, that was mind-blowing,\u201d Welch says. \u201cA little schizophrenic, actually \u2014 I mean, I was still a single mother with two small children. But I thought, okay, this is kind of scary and you didn\u2019t plan it this way but you\u2019re aboard the good ship Movie Star now. Make something out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t that easy, with the very name \u201cRaquel Welch\u201d becoming a go-to gag for stand-up comedians. Although the actress always drew a line \u2014 a little cheesecake was fine, full-out nudity was not \u2014 it was difficult to find parts outside the sex-symbol stereotype.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d only really done two movies, and I hadn\u2019t talked much in either,\u201d she says. \u201cProducers didn\u2019t know what to do with me. I wasn\u2019t too sure what to do with me. I was so green. \u2018Lady in Cement\u2019 \u2014 what was I thinking, doing that? But there was nothing going on in my head back then. It was just, \u2018It\u2019s Sinatra. It\u2019s Frank Sinatra. Oh my God, I\u2019m going to be working with Frank Sinatra!\u2019 I wasn\u2019t thinking about the movie at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Actually, the movie \u2014 with Sinatra as swinging private detective Tony Rome \u2014 is a guilty pleasure, and Welch is beautiful in it. But all she cared about was the chance to see her idol up close.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe shot in Miami, so I\u2019d go see him at the Fontainebleau every night, giving these masterful performances,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd then the next morning, he\u2019d walk on the set and just do it. \u2026 He didn\u2019t like a lot of takes, but I have to say, honestly, the guy could do it in one take. Because he always played Frank, and he knew that persona backwards and forwards. That\u2019s why you always believed him.\u201d<\/p>\n

You needed a bigger suspension of disbelief to get through her next big picture, \u201cMyra Breckinridge.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI had read the novel by Gore Vidal and I thought it was very, very entertaining and kind of a little ahead of the times, you know, issues of sexual duality and everything,\u201d she says. \u201cSo I was anxious to be considered for the role and I told Fox, \u2018I don\u2019t know what kind of girl you\u2019re looking for, but I know what Myra represents, about America and Hollywood, and I\u2019d love to do it.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the movie they made was not the movie I thought it was going to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ups and downs<\/p>\n

The cast featured film critic Rex Reed as the unhappy Myron Breckinridge, and Welch as the beautiful Myra he becomes after a sex-change operation; the style felt like \u201cThe Late Late Show\u201d crossed with a bad acid trip, as past-their-prime co-stars like John Carradine and Mae West wandered amidst the psychedelia.<\/p>\n

The movie was an infamous bomb \u2014 Time called it \u201cabout as funny as a child molester\u201d \u2014 and Welch calls the entire experience \u201cheartbreaking.\u201d But, she points out hopefully, \u201cAt least I think it kind of shows that I wasn\u2019t trying to be a sex symbol. I was really only trying to find interesting and varied roles.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pluckiness is typical Welch, her eyes determinedly fixed on the bright side. She doesn\u2019t turn down a movie like \u201cBluebeard,\u201d complaining about the awful script. She happily signs on \u2014 concentrating on the fact that she\u2019ll be acting with Richard Burton. It\u2019s an optimism that\u2019s led to some bad decisions, in roles and relationships. (She\u2019s currently separated from her fourth husband.)<\/p>\n

Still, she kept trying. She made the sexy Western \u201cHannie Caulder,\u201d the Burt Reynolds cop film \u201cFuzz.\u201d \u201cThe Last of Sheila\u201d was a truly unexpected treat \u2014 a witty story (from a screenplay by Stephen Sondheim and Anthony Perkins) with Welch, James Mason, James Coburn and Dyan Cannon as catty Hollywood characters on a deadly scavenger hunt.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was so happy to be part of that ensemble,\u201d Welch says. \u201cI thought it was a really smart, funny movie, and it did well enough, but it never totally lifted off. I don\u2019t know why. Sometimes, if a film isn\u2019t someone\u2019s particular baby, if it doesn\u2019t have someone at the studio pushing, it just doesn\u2019t get the attention.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another all-star production, \u201cThe Three Musketeers,\u201d was a bona fide hit. Welch found its success almost as puzzling.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really hesitated doing it,\u201d she says. \u201cI didn\u2019t get my character at all. What is this woman all about? Why is she falling down all the time? I asked (director) Dick Lester, and he said, \u2018There\u2019s no reason, that\u2019s the beauty of it. It\u2019s just funny.\u2019 I never got it. … Later, when it came out, I even put on some baggy old clothes and snuck in to see it with an audience and they were hysterical. They laughed at everything I did. And I still couldn\u2019t understand why. And you know, I didn\u2019t care why. It taught me a lot, really. Just do it. Don\u2019t think it to death.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Blacklisted\u2019<\/p>\n

It was a nice success, but the last one she would have in Hollywood for awhile.<\/p>\n

Another attempt to show off her dramatic range \u2014 in a Merchant\/Ivory film inspired by the Fatty Arbuckle case, \u201cThe Wild Party\u201d \u2014 turned out to be a depressing and enormous flop. Then, in 1982, she was fired five days into production of \u201cCannery Row\u201d; the producers first claimed she was taking too long to get ready, then ungallantly said she was too old (they ended up replacing her with Debra Winger).<\/p>\n

Welch sued and won a multimillion dollar settlement, but, says Pfeiffer, \u201cHollywood does not like trouble and once you have the reputation as someone who will fight back, you get blacklisted from a lot of major productions. The suit really ended her movie career.\u201d (It would be 16 years before Welch would do another film \u2014 a Carrot Top comedy called \u201cChairman of the Board.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Welch didn\u2019t spend the years sitting at home, though. She did \u201cThe Legend of Walks Far Woman\u201d for TV; she made her Broadway debut in \u201cWoman of the Year,\u201d following it up with \u201cVictor\/Victoria.\u201d And she rediscovered her heritage, finally visiting the country her father never spoke of and playing Hispanic matriarchs in PBS\u2019 \u201cAmerican Family\u201d and the indie film \u201cTortilla Soup.\u201d<\/p>\n

And if she\u2019s had time to be more reflective lately \u2014 her autobiography, \u201cRaquel: Beyond the Cleavage,\u201d came out just last year \u2014 she hasn\u2019t wasted any of it on second-guessing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like when the studio tried to change my name,\u201d she says. \u201cWell, yes, okay, maybe Raquel is a little different. But maybe I am too, and maybe that\u2019s all I\u2019ve really got to offer, and I should stick to it. I wasn\u2019t sure of that, at first. I tried to tame myself down a little, tried to look a little more middle of the road, a little more Mary Tyler Moore, who I loved. But you know what? I felt bad about it. And finally I thought, you know, you\u2019ve got something a little extra, girl. You should just strut it.\u201d