HOLLYWOOD icon Raquel Welch has died aged 82, according to reports.

The star - who found fame in One Million Years BC and Fantastic Voyage - became one of Hollywood's biggest stars for more than two decades.

Her father was Bolivian and she was born as Jo Raquel Tejada on September 5, 1940, in Chicago, Illinois.

As a young girl, she wanted to be a ballet dancer and began studying balletwhen she was just seven years old.

However, she gave up when her instructor told the 17-year-old that she did not have the right body type for professional ballet companies.

On leaving school she married her sweetheart James Welch and looked to pursue an acting career, eventually landing a job as a weather forecaster on a San Diego television station.

She had several small roles in films, including one opposite Elvis, but her career really took off when she starred in Fantastic Voyage, a sci-fi adventure about a team of medics shrunk down to the size of a pin and injected into a dying man's body to save him.

But she became an international sex symbol thanks to her next picture: One Million Years BC.

Made by Hammer Films (it was supposed to be the firm's 100th picture) the scenes of Welch battling dinosaurs in a fur bikini may not have been scientifically accurate, but millions of fans around the world didn't care.

Bradford Telegraph and Argus:

Welch went on to star in thrillers (fathom), westerns (Hannie Caulder) and received a Golden Globe for her role in The Three Musketeers in 1974.

In 1995, Welch was named one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in Film History in an issue of Empire magazine, and was ranked No. 3 in Playboy's 100 Sexiest Stars of the 20th Century.

In June 1990, the stardust of Hollywood briefly sprinkled the gruff life of Yorkshire and England fast bowling legend Fred Trueman.

His daughter Rebecca married Welch's son Damon. The village of Flasby, near Skipton, had not witnessed such a media hullabaloo.

Welch stunned onlookers outside the church in Bolton Abbey when she arrived late and emerged from her chauffeur-driven limo in a black figure-hugging dress with a plunging neckline.

This led some to ask if she had inadvertently upstaged her own daughter-in-law.


The Yorkshire ceremony was actually a wedding blessing. Rebecca and Damon had already married in Los Angeles in front of just two witnesses.

The TMZ website reported that Welch has passed away after a brief illness.