Raquel Welch

I wasn't sure I had anything to say about Raquel Welch, who died at the age of 82 yesterday. Then I realised she grew up in my hometown, San Diego, and even graduated from San Diego State University, like me. I tend to think of her as European I guess because she was part of a wave of popular actresses with relatively strong nasolabial folds in the 1960s, most of whom were European. Sophia Loren, Ursula Andress, Julie Christie. Actually, when I try to think of Raquel Welch movies, sometimes I realise the movie I'm remembering is actually an Ursula Andress movie.

Welch is most famous for a poster to One Million Years BC, a Hammer horror movie. I couldn't actually remember if I'd seen the movie, as much as I love Hammer. I had to search my blog and, yes, I reviewed it in 2014. So it's not the most memorable movie. It is a nice poster.

I remember Hannie Caulder a little better, a 1971 western she filmed with Christopher Lee and Diana Dors. But I guess my strongest memory of her is her cameo in 1969's The Magic Christian in which she whips topless galley slave girls on a modern cruise ship.

She certainly was sexy.