Born Raquel Tejada, on September 5, 1940, in Chicago, Illinois. Welch entered beauty contests as a teenager, and worked as a model, waitress, and television weather-girl before making her film debut in 1964 with a bit part in the Elvis Presley vehicle Roustabout.

Launched as a sex symbol after her scantily clad appearance in One Million Years BC (1966), Welch was rarely challenged by later roles, which included The Biggest Bundle of Them All (1968) and 100 Rifles (1969).

In an effort to shed her sex kitten image, Welch starred in the disastrous film adaptation Myra Breckenridge (1970), based on the intellectual and risqué novel by Gore Vidal.

Although for her part in The Three Musketeers (1973) she received a Best Actress Golden Globe Award, Welch failed to find success in her subsequent projects, garnering little attention in Hollywood after the failure of the 1976 black comedy Mother, Jugs and Speed.

Despite mediocre film work, Welch continued to be regarded as a great beauty, and her career went on to include nightclub entertaining, the Broadway musical Woman of the Year (1982), and the publication of a Total Beauty and Fitness Program (1984).

She starred in the TV movies Right to Die (1987) and Scandal in a Small Town (1988), before returning to film with cameo appearances in the comedies Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult (1994) and Legally Blond (2001) .

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