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She became an instant sex symbol the moment she appeared in that fur bikini in "One Million Years B.C." That was in 1966. Today Raquel Welch says: "That was also the moment the real Raquel disappeared." Her book "Raquel: Beyond the Cleavage," to be released today, is about the real Raquel and the lessons she learned. The 69-year-old actress, author and businesswoman won a Golden Globe for her comic performance in the 1974 film "The Three Musketeers." She married her first husband, James Welch, when she was 19 and has two children from that union. She went on to wed three more times. She is scheduled to be on "Oprah" today and will guest host Turner Classic Movies with Robert Osborne on Thursday to present four of her favorite films.
Why write the book?
I had these things sort of bubbling over to express. I felt like because I had always been a symbol, a thing and somebody without a voice, just an image, that it was very important for me to voice those things. And I felt a kinship with other women. I felt a need to write down what my discoveries were. It was one of the few chances I have to use my real voice and people will not be distracted by the physical image.
You talk about the compromises of fame in the book.
See the What I was trying to do was make it a kind of handbook for women that touched on all of the things that concern every woman, not just actresses or people who are considered famous. My experience is maybe a little bit different from them because of my career. But otherwise we have so much common ground between us. You know, to show them that even with the fame and the wealth and the excitement of meeting fantastic people and travel and all that, underneath, the fundamental qualities of being women is very much there and shared by all of us. We have the same kinds of doubts and fears and challenges and insecurities that we have to fight and do psychological battle with.
You write about your parents' relationship, your father's dominance and your mother's subservience. Which personality did you identify with?
I think I'm kind of an amalgamation of both. The truth is I felt sometimes like I was identifying with my mother and she was a victim -- under his thumb. But at the same time there was a kind of anger and resistance rising up in me. I wrote about the confrontation [with her father] and I did something very forceful and confronted him and made him back down. When I had that confrontation it was not so much the outcome but that I had built a resistance to this kind of tyrannical oppression from my father. I was not going to let it happen to me. That very much shaped my personality. I never forgot the fact that my mother, as a woman, was enabling to a man and deferred to a man quite a lot of the time. What I'm saying is, I am two things. I am an independent woman who does not want to be mistreated. Who wants to be respected. Who has an identity outside of a man. Still, I am very much enamored with men and attracted to them as the kind of natural completion of what I am as a woman.
You found power as a sex symbol playing up the feminine qualities.
I did in a way. I think it was unconscious, but very much present in my image that I was a marked departure from the very vulnerable and very available Marilyn Monroe. I was athletic, independent, strong, forceful, a woman, yes, and a sexual creature, but somebody you had to deal with. You were not going to be dealing with a pushover. I think that was pretty explicit in that very first poster. I think that is why people saw me and recognized me, not because I was another girl in a bikini.
How did you deal with the casting couch scenarios?
Well, when I was the girl in the poster I was also the mother of two small children. People did not see me as somebody who was really a mommy, instead I came across as some sex symbol, goddess type. The real Raquel was just not up for having little dalliances for whatever reason. I was a mother. It was just not in me to have promiscuous liaisons for work or to advance my career or for any other purpose. Many of the young actresses, when I was starting out, I saw them going out with a lot of people because they thought it might help them, you know, partying with different people who were in power and making promises to them.
You've talked about your children as a grounding force. Do you think you would have made the same choices had they not existed?
I think I probably would have. I think there was something about me having those children and being the kind of woman who is only capable of falling in love. I think that was built into my DNA, and that's why I got married to the man. I thought I was in love. That's why I had the two children. That's why I followed my calling into a career, and that's why I reacted the way I did.
Did you take special care raising your son when it came to respecting women?
I think my son is respectful of women and others in general. He's a very, very kind soul but I don't think that is any of my doing. In the book I talk about how difficult it is to be a single parent and a working mother. But if you are in show business and now you are being dragged all over the planet and if your children come with you, they have to have tutors and people to take care of them while you are on a set. These sets aren't always in a sound stage like they were in the good old days of Hollywood. They are out in a desert someplace or on the top of a volcano, in the case of "One Million Years BC." So what you have is not toddler friendly territory. Today there are little nurseries provided on the set and mommy time and it's a much more user-friendly industry. In my day children were just persona non grata in the industry.
Were you concerned when your daughter would be trapped in a persona when she went into acting?
No not at all. She told me way ahead of time, "Mom I don't want to be anything like you." I said, "Well, honey, I agree. You should really go your own way." We do have a marked resemblance in so many ways. She has a completely different approach as an actress. I say in the book that all the good characteristics my kids developed were really their own achievements and not something I did for them. Because I was a career woman, I wasn't always able to be present when I would have liked to be. So that was a big price to pay for myself and for them.
Was your mother's passing a turning point for you?
I talk to older women -- I'm 69 years old now -- about the beauty after 50 and the vitality that is still there if you are interested in life and not just in yourself. I looked to my mother to see how she was coping with her life as she got older. My mother lived to be 93. I was aging and watching her ahead of me paving the way. I was changing. I think it's a natural progression that a lot of us try to resist. We don't want to get older. This is actually a beautiful period when you are figuring out what your life is all about and what things you really value, your real priorities and to kind of make an assessment of what you have done so far and what needs fixing. I feel like it is probably the best time, at least as far as your interior life goes. The things about youth that we concentrate on are the exterior, but so much concentration on the superficial doesn't really prepare you for when you get past 50 and you suddenly have to really deal with yourself and find deeper questions and answers to the larger questions. So, yes, my mother passing was very pivotal. What I realized, too, that my father, with all his bluster and temperament, was the weak one.
What is it you want now from your career and from life?
I want joy and peace in my own heart. I want the opportunity just to live as a person, not as a thing or a special celebrity. My faith and my belief system is very important to me. So I'm happy.
Mackenzie Carpenter's video program, "Omnivore," is available exclusively at PG+, a members-only web site of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.
