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James Welch Jim Harrison Biography & Facts

Jo Raquel Welch (née Tejada; September 5, 1940 – February 15, 2023) was an American actress. Welch first garnered attention for her role in Fantastic Voyage (1966), after which she signed a long-term contract with 20th Century Fox. They lent her contract to the British studio Hammer Film Productions, for whom she made One Million Years B.C. (1966). Although Welch had only three lines of dialogue in the film, images of her in the doe-skin bikini became bestselling posters that turned her into an international sex symbol. She later starred in Bedazzled (1967), Bandolero! (1968), 100 Rifles (1969), Myra Breckinridge (1970), Hannie Caulder (1971), Kansas City Bomber (1972), The Last of Sheila (1973), The Three Musketeers (1973), The Wild Party (1975), and Mother, Jugs & Speed (1976). She made several television variety specials. Through her portrayal of strong female characters, helping her break the mold of the traditional sex symbol, Welch developed a unique film persona that made her an icon of the 1960s and 1970s. Her rise to stardom in the mid-1960s was partly credited with ending Hollywood's vigorous promotion of the blonde bombshell. Her love scene with Jim Brown in 100 Rifles also made cinematic history with their portrayal of interracial intimacy. She won a Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture Actress in a Musical or Comedy in 1974 for her performance as Constance Bonacieux in The Three Musketeers and reprised the role in its sequel the following year. She was also nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in Television Film for her performance in Right to Die (1987). Her final film was How to Be a Latin Lover (2017). In 1995, Welch was chosen by Empire magazine as one of the "100 Sexiest Stars in Film History". Playboy ranked Welch No. 3 on their "100 Sexiest Stars of the Twentieth Century" list. Early life Welch was born Jo Raquel Tejada on September 5, 1940, in Chicago, Illinois. She was the first child of Armando Carlos Tejada Urquizo and Josephine Sarah Hall. Her father, Armando Tejada, was an aeronautical engineer from La Paz, Bolivia, son of Agustin Tejada and Raquel Urquizo. In 2010, during the release of her memoir Raquel: Beyond the Cleavage, Welch was interviewed on the talk show Tavis Smiley, and said, "My father came from a country called Bolivia. He was of Spanish descent." Her cousin, Bolivian politician Lidia Gueiler Tejada, became the first female president of Bolivia and the second female non-royal head of state in the Americas. Welch was named after her paternal grandmother. Her mother, Josephine Hall, was the daughter of architect Emery Stanford Hall and his wife Clara Louise Adams; she was of colonial English ancestry. Welch had a younger brother, James "Jim" Tejada, and a younger sister, Gayle Tejada. The family moved from Illinois to San Diego, California, when Welch was two years old. Welch attended the Pacific Beach Presbyterian Church every Sunday with her mother. As a young girl, Welch had the desire to be a performer and entertainer. She began studying ballet at age seven, but after ten years of study, she left the art at seventeen when her instructor told her she did not have the right body type for professional ballet companies. At age 14, she won beauty titles as Miss Photogenic and Miss Contour. While attending La Jolla High School she won the title of Miss La Jolla and the title of Miss San Diego – the Fairest of the Fair – at the San Diego County Fair. This long line of beauty contests eventually led to the state title of Maid of California. Her parents divorced when she finished her school years. Welch graduated with honors from high school in 1958. Seeking an acting career, she entered San Diego State College on a theater arts scholarship, and the following year she married her high school sweetheart, James Welch. She assumed his last name and kept it throughout her life. She won several parts in local theater productions. In 1959, she played the title role in The Ramona Pageant, a yearly outdoor play at Hemet, California, which is based on the novel Ramona by Helen Hunt Jackson. In 1960, Welch got a job as a weather presenter at KFMB, a local San Diego television station. Because her family life and television duties were so demanding, she decided to give up her drama classes. After her separation from James Welch, she moved with her two children to Dallas, Texas, where she made a "precarious living" as a model for Neiman Marcus and as a cocktail waitress. Welch was raised in the Presbyterian religion and continued to go to church every Sunday. Career 1964–1966: Early works and breakthrough Welch initially intended to move to New York City from Dallas, but moved back to Los Angeles in 1963 and started applying for roles with film studios. During this period, she met a one-time child actor and Hollywood agent Patrick Curtis who became her personal and business manager. They developed a plan to turn Welch into a sex symbol. To avoid typecasting as a Latina, he convinced her to use her ex-husband's surname. She was cast in small roles in two films, A House Is Not a Home (1964) and the musical Roustabout (1964), an Elvis Presley film. She also landed small roles on the television series Bewitched, McHale's Navy and The Virginian and appeared on the weekly variety series The Hollywood Palace as a billboard girl and presenter. She was one of many actresses who auditioned for the role of Mary Ann Summers on the television series Gilligan's Island. Welch's first featured role was in the beach film A Swingin' Summer (1965). That same year, she won the Deb Star while her photo in a Life magazine layout called "The End of the Great Girl Drought!" created a buzz around town. She was strongly considered for the role of Domino in Thunderball and was also noticed by the wife of producer Saul David, who recommended her to 20th Century Fox, where with the help of Curtis she landed a contract. She agreed to a seven-year nonexclusive contract, five pictures over the next five years, and two floaters. Studio executives talked about changing her name to "Debbie". They thought "Raquel" would be hard to pronounce. She refused their request. She wanted her real name, so she stuck with "Raquel Welch". After screen testing for Saul David's Our Man Flint, she was cast in a leading role in David's sci-fi film Fantastic Voyage (1966), in which she portrayed a member of a medical team that is miniaturized and injected into the body of an injured scientist with the mission to save his life. The film was a hit and made her a star. Fox loaned Welch to Hammer Studios in Britain where she starred in the science fiction film One Million Years B.C. (1966), a remake of the Hal Roach film One Million B.C. (1940). Her only costume was a two-piece deer skin bikini. She was described as "wearing mankind's first bikini" and the fur bikini was described as a "definitive look of the 1960s". The New York Times hailed her in its review of the .... Discover the James Welch Jim Harrison popular books. Find the top 100 most popular James Welch Jim Harrison books.