Hard to believe, but Raquel Welch is dead, on her 82nd birthday.
An international screen siren and sex symbol, Raquel was buxom and beautiful but also had a brain. When she appeared on Broadway in “Victor/Victoria,” we got to see her a lot. That’s when I found she’d dated Bob Dylan. No kidding. She was no dummy.
Raquel hit it big in 1966 with two B movies: Fantastic Voyage and One Million Years BC. Later she starred in Myra Breckenridge, The Magic Christian, and The Three Musketeers. She had a good sense of humor about being every boy’s pin up in the 1960s. Her character’s name in “Bedazzled” was Lilian Lust.
She was on Broadway twice. She replaced Julie Andrews in “Victor/Victoria” in 1997, and Lauren Bacall in “Woman of the Year” in 1981. Each time, she was praised for her performance and made a lot of friends in the New York theater world. It was during that 1997 run that she spent some time in Elaine’s restaurant and I got to know her. That’s when she told me told she’d dated Bob Dylan, raising her already high profile to a new stratosphere.
Raquel was married four times and had two children. Her daughter, Tahnee Welch, starred in the great movie, “Cocoon.” Raquel was a great lady and will be sorely missed.
