Legendary sex symbol Raquel Welch made her mark on Hollywood swaddled in a doeskin bikini but surprisingly, the beauty is a self-proclaimed prude. Welch speaks exclusively with AARP VIVA in a revealing conversation about her sex-pot image and accepting her exotic looks. “I flipped my hair and put a bow in,” Welch says on trying to button up her appearance. “But at some point I said, I’m not going to fight it. This is what makes me different.”
Check out behind the scenes footage of the cover photo shoot:
Welch is reinventing herself with a new focus on family and entrepreneurial ventures and proving that age is nothing but a number with knock-out in-book photos that reveal her still-sexy-at-seventy physique. Here’s a snippet.
On writing Raquel: Beyond the Cleavage
“I felt like people had me on a pedestal, and they didn’t know there was this other person. They saw the poster but they didn’t know the story behind it.”
On trying to retire her sex-pot image
“I wasn’t getting the romantic, lovely parts. I was kind of exotic for this country, not the girl next door. I’d go up for a role and they’d say ‘Oh, no, you look so European. What are you anyway?’ I’d say, ‘Well my father is from Bolivia. ‘’Bolivia! Where is that?’”
On struggling as a single mom in Hollywood
“When I first came to Hollywood, other people may have thought, ‘You poor thing, you don’t have a car, you have two children, what possessed you?’ But it made me focus. I didn’t know if I did right to leave Jim and thought, ‘This thing better work for me, and I better really keep my eye on the ball and be careful.’”
On her involvement with Hair U Wear’s line of Raquel Welch Signature Collection
“When women go to the mirror and see their hair falling out, it’s like they see the cancer winning. If they don’t have to see themselves that way, it’s very helpful with morale.”
On sympathizing with Lindsay Lohan
“I’m the antidote to Lindsay Lohan. I know she misbehaves terribly, but sometimes it just seems like it’s open season on her.”
On young Hollywood
“’My self-esteem,’ my self-this,’ ‘my self-that.’ Believe me, I’ve been there—I’m an actress. At one point you just get nauseous with it and think, ‘I have to take my mind off myself!’”
On growing older
“I wasn’t impossible before then, but in the past 10 years I’ve made a concentrated effort to think about what I have to do for other people, what I woe, what my part is in whatever relationship or situation I find myself in. It’s getting older, I guess, that makes you think that way”
On trying to emulate Mary Tyler Moore
“I flipped my hair and put a bow in—to make myself look less exotic. But at some point I said, I’m not going to fight it. This is what makes me different.’”
On filming Myra Breckinridge
“I’d go into the bathroom and cry. John Huston knocked one time and said, ‘Now Raquel what seems to be the problem’” ‘I said, ‘ I’m worried we’re going to make a bad movie.’”