NEW YORK (AP) — Raquel Welch, whose emergence from the sea in a skimpy, furry bikini in the film “One Million Years B.C.” would propel her to international sex symbol status throughout the 1960s and ’70s, has died. She was 82.
Welch died early Wednesday after a brief illness, according to her agent, Stephen LaManna of the talent agency Innovative Artists.
Welch’s breakthrough came in 1966′s campy prehistoric flick “One Million Years B.C.,” despite having a grand total of three lines. Clad in a brown doeskin bikini, she successfully evaded pterodactyls — but not the notice of the public.
“I just thought it was a goofy dinosaur epic we’d be able to sweep under the carpet one day,” she told The Associated Press in 1981. “Wrong. It turned out that I was the Bo Derek of the season, the lady in the loin cloth about whom everyone said, ‘My God, what a bod’ and they expected to disappear overnight.”
She did not, playing Lust for the comedy team of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore in their film “Bedazzled” in 1967 and playing a secret agent in the sexy spy spoof “Fathom” that same year.
Her curves and beauty captured pop culture attention, with Playboy crowning her the “most desired woman” of the ’70s, despite never being completely naked in the magazine. In 2013, she graced the No. 2 spot on Men’s Health’s “Hottest Women of All Time” list. In the film “The Shawshank Redemption,” a poster of Welch is used to cover an escape tunnel, the last of three women he used images of after Rita Hayworth and Marilyn Monroe.
Reporting by Mark Kennedy | Associated Press
Raquel Welch portrays Maria Stoner in the western “Bandolero!”, directed by Andrew V. McLaglen, at the Alamo Village, Texas on Nov. 7, 1967. (Harry Benson/Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images) A portrait of actress Raquel Welch from 1968. (Fox Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images) Actress Raquel Welch and comedian Peter Sellers attend a press conference to promote their film “The Magic Christian,” in London on April 28, 1969. (Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
A portrait taken Jan. 14, 1970 in Paris shows US actress Raquel Welch. (AFP via Getty Images) American actress Raquel Welch poses for photographers in Paris on Jan. 15, 1970. (Michel Lipchitz/AP Archives) Actress Raquel Welch rests on a bed below a crucifix, in a scene from the film “The Beloved,” circa 1970. (Keystone Features/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Actress Raquel Welch acts in a scene from the film “The Beloved,” circa 1970. (Keystone Features/Hulton Archive/Getty Images) Raquel Welch stands on the balcony of the Playboy Club during a photo-call to promote the film “The Beloved” in London on Aug. 3, 1970. (Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images) Raquel Welch and her husband, Patrick Curtis, are seen in London in 1971. (Central Press/Getty Images)
New York Jets football player Joe Namath arrives with actress Raquel Welch to the 44th annual Academy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles on April 10, 1972. (AP Archives) Raquel Welch appears in “Really, Raquel,” a 1974 television special of her live 1973 dinner club production, featuring Welch and puppets from the World of Sid & Marty Krofft. Actress Raquel Welch gives a press conference on February 4, 1976 before her show at the Palais des Congrès in Paris. (AFP via Getty Images)
Raquel Welch appears during a rehearsal for the Broadway show “Woman of the Year,” with, from left, Ed Nolfi, Sterling Clark and Paul Bogave in New York, on Nov. 12, 1981. (Angel Franco/AP Archives) Actress Raquel Welch, starring in Broadway Musical “Woman of the Year,” poses with sailors from the aircraft carrier USS Saipan and a few Marines on July 3, 1982 in New York. (David Handschuh/AP Archives) Actress Raquel Welch poses backstage at the Emmy Awards in Los Angeles on Sept. 20, 1987. (Doug PizacAP Archives)
Actress Raquel Welch waves to photographers and fans as she sits in front of her newly unveiled star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on June 8, 1996 in Hollywood. (Photo by Kim Kulish/AFP via Getty Images) Raquel Welch appears at the Los Angeles premiere of “How to Be a Latin Lover” on April 26, 2017. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP Archives)
