Raquel Welch

About Raquel Welch

Raquel Welch
(September 5, 1940 - February 15, 2023)
Raquel was a Golden Globe Award-winning American actress and glamour model. Welch became the leading sex symbol of the late 1960s and 1970s, after the death of Marilyn Monroe. Welch was one of the sexiest women over the age of 50.

Welch was born Jo Raquel Tejada in Chicago, Illinois, the oldest of three children She was the daughter of Josephine Sarah (née Hall) with English ancestry dating back to John Quincy Adams and the Mayflower, and Armando Carlos Tejada Urquizo, a Bolivian of Spanish descent.

In 1942, Armando Tejada was transferred to San Diego, California. The family moved to the suburb of La Jolla, where Raquel grew up. She took dancing lessons as a child, and was winning beauty pageants by the time she was a teenager. Among her titles were "Miss Photogenic," "Miss La Jolla," "Miss Contour," and "Miss San Diego." In 1957, she was named "Miss Fairest of the Fair" at the San Diego County Fair. In mid-1957, Raquel graduated from La Jolla High School, and later went to San Diego State College on a theater arts scholarship. In 1959, Raquel married her high school sweetheart, James Welch. Mother of the talented siblings Tahnee Welch and Damon Welch.

Welch died on February 15, 2023, at her home in Los Angeles, following a brief illness. She was 82.