Raquel Welch: Beyond the woman in the fur bikini

The 1966 B-movie One Million Years BC would be lying forgotten in the annals of Hollywood history but for Raquel Welch. The California-origin actor, who died last week at the age of 82, is immortalised in the image of Leona, a cavewoman who fights all manner of prehistoric monsters wearing a pelt two-piece bikini. Does that diminish the iconic star of the 20th century? Perhaps not.

In the film, she barely says a word as she looms against a background of dinosaurs, turtles and cavemen battling it out. In the photograph from the film that became a pin-up poster, she strikes a pose, her hair blowing in the breeze, a faraway look in her eyes, the gold of her hair highlighted by the sulphurous smoke, orange jagged rocks and Eastman-blue sky behind her.

It is a version of this poster that Ellis Boyd Redding (Morgan Freeman) gifts to Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) in the 1994 film Shawshank Redemption, and which Andy later uses to cover up the hole he cuts patiently over years into a wall in his cell for a quick getaway. As with any piece of art with vast cultural impact, every element of Shawshank Redemption has also been parsed.

The choice of these pin-up posters — Redding also gifts another poster of Marilyn Monroe to Dufresne on a different occasion — has been seen to be more meaningful than they might initially suggest. Of course, there is the literal metaphor of an escape; but there’s also a nod to the rich American tradition of pin-up girls, a culture that took root in World War II.

Raquel Welch: Her life and work in pictures

Raquel Welch's autobiography 'Raquel: Beyond the Cleavage' (2010).

From illustrations to lasciviously shot photographs, the pin-up girl was ubiquitous through much of the 20th century: from the Gibson Girl to Betty Grable to Blaze Starr and Pamela Anderson, you could see just enough of these beautiful women, leaving a lot more to the imagination. They defined the American standard of beauty: ample bosoms and tiny waists. Their proliferation was tied with the feminist movement in the US, seen as symbols of the modern, independent woman who embraced her sexuality — even though there’s no shortage of critics who point to the fact that this happened within the confines of the male gaze.

Raquel Welch was, of course, part of this tradition — and proudly so. In her 2010 autobiography, Beyond the Cleavage, Welch wrote, “...at my present age, with the luxury of hindsight, I've noticed a tendency in my gender to underestimate the value of being a member of the female sex. I've fought that tendency in myself, and have come to adopt a more positive and empowering attitude toward the art of being a woman.”

This wasn’t some platitude being handed out in defence of their choices by a woman who redefined what it meant to be sex symbol and icon in the 1960s. Elsewhere in the memoir, Welch recounts an incident from the set of One Million Years BC, where she tries to talk to her director Don Chaffey about her character. On her first day on set, she went up to him and said: “Listen, Don, I’ve been studying the script and I’ve been thinking — ” His response was to cut her off: “You were thinking?” he said. “Don’t.”

Chaffey was the first in a long line of producers and directors who didn’t care what Welch — and their female actors in general — thought. This lack of respect was not lost on her. But her entire career is evidence of the fact that she worked hard to counter that eventuality: To be reduced to nothing more than a sex symbol. And she did it by building a vast, diverse body of work, and flexing every talent she knew she had.

In 1966, before One Million Years BC, Raquel Welch’s debut in Hollywood was in the sci-fi film Fantastic Voyage (1966), where she is seen fighting a different kind of enemy covered in lab coats and overalls. She capitalised on this breakthrough moment, and very quickly turned a corner to demonstrate her comedic bone in Richard Lester’s 1973 mega-hit, The Three Musketeers. It won her a Golden Globe award — and she had arrived as a serious actor.

But Welch, who could have built her fortune simply on this, was not done yet. She found even more visibility and power by being medium-agnostic. In the 1970s, she was, perhaps, more popular for her nightclub act, “Really, Raquel”, which played for years in Las Vegas and later even became the basis for a cable network TV show. All through that time, she kept the momentum going on screen, appearing in a diversity of roles. Some, like her turn as a skydiver and world-saver in Fathom and a single mother and rollerblader in Kansas City Bombers, were better than others, like Myra Breckinridge, the awful adaptation of a Gore Vidal novel, which has her playing a transgender woman. But nothing could stop her.

During the 1980s, she pivoted once again, this time to TV, playing strong female leads in dramas such as the 1988 TV-movie Right to Die — which got her her second Golden Globe nomination. She also had her own fitness video series — the biggest trend of the 1980s and a major money-spinner. All through her career, Raquel Welch rode the crest of whatever new wave swept through Hollywood, and did it with a raw, powerful combination of sex appeal and humour. It’s what helped a star like her stay glowing even at the turn of the new millennium, almost stealing the show with her supporting roles on comedy phenomena like Seinfeld (1989) and Legally Blonde (2001).

Of course, through the years, there were many more Raquel Welch posters. Whether it’s her in lace and satin lingerie from the 1967 film Bedazzled; or a much bolder sheer bikini, walking out of the sea, her short perm blowing in the wind — they’re still easy to find for a few thousand rupees on online retailer sites. Perhaps, Welch’s greatest asset was her understanding of the power of the image. In the end, that’s really what helped her demonstrate the “art of being a woman” — in as much of a wholesome, complete, formidable and forward-looking way that she could.