Raquel Welch died today after a brief illness, her family reports. The star of hundreds of movies, TV shows and advertisements, Welch built her fame with sci-fi classics Fantastic Voyage and One Million Years B.C. and soared in blockbusters such as Bedazzled and The Three Musketeers. She was 82.
The actress, with more than 70 film and television credits, got her start as a spokesmodel on a variety show, "Hollywood Palace," and had a small role in the Elvis Presley film "Roustabout" in 1964.
Her career took off two years later, with the release of the science fiction film "Fantastic Voyage," about a team of scientists shrunken and injected into a critically ill man's body; and "One Million Years, B.C.," a prehistoric drama that cast Welch as the cavewoman Loana, with the photos of her in a fur bikini becoming the foundation of the movie's marketing campaign, while turning Welch into an international sex symbol. (The poster later became a central device in the acclaimed movie "The Shawshank Redemption.")
Welch's career in TV and film spanned decades. A number of starring roles for Welch followed in the late 1960s, including the westerns "Bandolero!" and "100 Rifles," the latter notable for her then-controversial interracial love scene with former football star Jim Brown.
