Raquel Welch — The Last of the

Sex Symbols

by Chris Narloch

Every time Hollywood counted her out, Raquel Welch came back and kept on going. Welch, who died recently at age 82, even survived playing a bikini-clad cavewoman in “One Million Years B.C.,” and she doesn’t get enough credit for bravely accepting the lead role in “Myra Breckinridge,” one of the first movies to depict a transexual on the big screen.

Sadly, “Myra Breckinridge,” based on a famous novel of the same name by Gore Vidal, was a notorious box office flop and is considered one of the worst major movies ever made, but it’s something to see — once. In it, Welch plays Myra (formerly Myron), and the voluptuous actress shares the screen with a wild cast that includes Rex Reed, John Huston, Mae West, Farrah Fawcett, Tom Selleck, and Toni Basil.

When Hollywood stopped calling as she got older, Welch started a wig line and made a mint. Maybe it’s a good thing that we don’t have female sex symbols anymore, at least not in the same way that stars like Welch, Marilyn Monroe and Brigitte Bardot were objectified and marketed back in the day. Progress perhaps, but I will miss the likes of Raquel Welch, the type of cinematic sex symbol we may never see again.