Rachel biography raquel welch

(b. 5 September 1940 in Chicago, Illinois), actress and sex symbol who took the worldwide media by storm after the 1966 release of a movie poster featuring her natural assets in a wild and woolly prehistoric bikini.

Welch, born Jo-Raquel Tejada, moved with her family in 1942 to the tiny Pacific Coast village of La Jolla, California.

She was the oldest of three children of Armand C. Tejada, a Bolivian structural engineer of Castilian origins, and Josephine Sarah (Hall) Tejada, a statistical clerk at an aircraft factory who was of English and Scottish descent.

Her parents divorced when Welch was in high school. Welch studied ballet for seven years and by adolescence was well proportioned and naturally poised—she stood five feet, six inches tall and weighed 118 pounds, with an hourglass figure.

She earned a spot on her La Jolla High School cheerleading squad and at age fourteen entered a beauty contest, winning first prize out of a field of 150 contestants. At age fi