Welch’s movie career was powered by a desire to be taken seriously as more than a sex symbol. The 1975 film ‘The Wild Party’ proved how difficult that would be, on screen and off.
I haven't seen many Welch performances, so I can't speak to her actual skills, but having recently rewatched The Last of Sheila, her performance in that was so bad it really made me wonder how she appeared in so many movies *without* a fur bikini
I agree ... also recently saw "Sheila" (thank you, TCM!). Although Welch is only asked to play a version of herself, she's somehow utterly unbelievable and unnatural.
Stella Stevens also died recently and was similarly bitterly disappointed over the years about her inability to get out the bombshell box that Hollywood put her in at the start of her career. And I agree, I don't think Hollywood's transactional treatment of women has improved much from the '20s to the '70s -- or to the '20s again. I haven't read the essay, but that icky anecdote about the choreography that Perry King cooked up for his "love scene" with Welch -- I'm inferring this was all a surprise to Welch (a la the "butter scene" from LAST TANGO IN PARIS")? It's a brutal business, and any epitaph about Welch's screen career should also include her successful lawsuit against MGM for getting fired from CANNERY ROW. She won the battle but lost the war ... and never had a major role in a movie again.
Side note but I really do appreciate that it's becoming more common to point out that a lot of directors treated actresses poorly in the name of making art, and to take that at least a little seriously. I still love The Birds, for example, but not so much that Tippi Hedren deserved what Hitchcock put her through, on that set and later.
I watched The Wild Party a few years ago -- I'm a big fan of the poem, having encountered it when Art Spiegelman put out an illustrated edition in the 90s -- and I can't say the movie really worked for me. Maybe if Ivory had been able to communicate better with Welch they would have gotten a better movie out of it. But no, that would have meant not surprising her by having Perry King throw her onto a bed. Ugh, creepy guys and their vicarious thrills.
When I saw it, I felt that Welch had some chemistry with James Coco and no one else. It's not hard to see why.
Her willingness to work hard and really push herself was commendable, and paid dividends - she even won a Golden Globe (no puns please) for The Three Musketeers, and got good notices on Broadway when she took over from Lauren Bacall, ironically another actress whose big break was entirely down to looks, in Woman of the Year - but her talent was essentially mediocre.
Here's Clive James reviewing her appearance on a Bob Hope special in 1978:
Raquel Welch was also among Hope's guests. She is the exception to the rule I have just outlined [that in the final stages of fame you no longer have to do very much of whatever it was that made you famous in the first place]. By now she is famous enough to do nothing. Instead, she gives us her all.
Raquel was involved in a lengthy comic routine which required that she should pretend to sing and dance very badly. This she accomplished with ease. The trouble started when she reappeared in propria persona and tried to convince us that she can sing and dance very well. Thousand of pounds' worth of feathers, each plume plucked from the fundament of a fleeing flamingo, could not disguise the fact that she sings like a duck. As for her beautiful body, she has taught it to move in time, but the whole strenuous effort has been a triumph of determination over an invisible pair of diving boots.
Clive James again, from 1980, reviewing The Legend of Walks Far Woman, a TV Movie in which RW played a Blackfoot woman:
The only way you could be sure Raquel was a Red Woman was by her make up. Not a very good singer or dancer, she is not a very good actress either. But she takes a lot of trouble to set up a serious project and deserves a measure of applause for it. Her chief failing is to introduce an element of decolletage into whatever costume she happens to be wearing. This sartorial quirk was particularly inappropriate in Fantastic Voyage where the costume was a pressure suit, but it didn't look quite right for Walks Far Woman either. She looked like Sticks Out Woman.
Raquel also turned up as a guest star in the latest episode of Mork and Mindy, a slick imported American comedy series in which the one-line gags pile up in struggling heaps. Raquel wasn't quite fast enough for the regulars, but she made up for it with her figure. Playing a ruthless invader from space, she was particularly ruthless with the top buttons of her uniform, which had evidently cracked under the strain.
In the first scene of the Elvis Presley movie Roustabout, Raquel, then at the start of her career, was briefly visible as a teenage walk-on. She didn't say her line particularly well, but her face registered. The best thing she ever did was her small part in Bedazzled where clever direction made it look as if that extraordinary shape of hers were light on its feet. Actually she has to march into position and set up camp for the night. She is Walks Awkwardly Woman. But there is something nice about her.
I haven't seen many Welch performances, so I can't speak to her actual skills, but having recently rewatched The Last of Sheila, her performance in that was so bad it really made me wonder how she appeared in so many movies *without* a fur bikini
I agree ... also recently saw "Sheila" (thank you, TCM!). Although Welch is only asked to play a version of herself, she's somehow utterly unbelievable and unnatural.
I guess I missed my edit window? so many dependent clauses!
Stella Stevens also died recently and was similarly bitterly disappointed over the years about her inability to get out the bombshell box that Hollywood put her in at the start of her career. And I agree, I don't think Hollywood's transactional treatment of women has improved much from the '20s to the '70s -- or to the '20s again. I haven't read the essay, but that icky anecdote about the choreography that Perry King cooked up for his "love scene" with Welch -- I'm inferring this was all a surprise to Welch (a la the "butter scene" from LAST TANGO IN PARIS")? It's a brutal business, and any epitaph about Welch's screen career should also include her successful lawsuit against MGM for getting fired from CANNERY ROW. She won the battle but lost the war ... and never had a major role in a movie again.
Side note but I really do appreciate that it's becoming more common to point out that a lot of directors treated actresses poorly in the name of making art, and to take that at least a little seriously. I still love The Birds, for example, but not so much that Tippi Hedren deserved what Hitchcock put her through, on that set and later.
I watched The Wild Party a few years ago -- I'm a big fan of the poem, having encountered it when Art Spiegelman put out an illustrated edition in the 90s -- and I can't say the movie really worked for me. Maybe if Ivory had been able to communicate better with Welch they would have gotten a better movie out of it. But no, that would have meant not surprising her by having Perry King throw her onto a bed. Ugh, creepy guys and their vicarious thrills.
When I saw it, I felt that Welch had some chemistry with James Coco and no one else. It's not hard to see why.
Her willingness to work hard and really push herself was commendable, and paid dividends - she even won a Golden Globe (no puns please) for The Three Musketeers, and got good notices on Broadway when she took over from Lauren Bacall, ironically another actress whose big break was entirely down to looks, in Woman of the Year - but her talent was essentially mediocre.
Here's Clive James reviewing her appearance on a Bob Hope special in 1978:
Raquel Welch was also among Hope's guests. She is the exception to the rule I have just outlined [that in the final stages of fame you no longer have to do very much of whatever it was that made you famous in the first place]. By now she is famous enough to do nothing. Instead, she gives us her all.
Raquel was involved in a lengthy comic routine which required that she should pretend to sing and dance very badly. This she accomplished with ease. The trouble started when she reappeared in propria persona and tried to convince us that she can sing and dance very well. Thousand of pounds' worth of feathers, each plume plucked from the fundament of a fleeing flamingo, could not disguise the fact that she sings like a duck. As for her beautiful body, she has taught it to move in time, but the whole strenuous effort has been a triumph of determination over an invisible pair of diving boots.
Clive James again, from 1980, reviewing The Legend of Walks Far Woman, a TV Movie in which RW played a Blackfoot woman:
The only way you could be sure Raquel was a Red Woman was by her make up. Not a very good singer or dancer, she is not a very good actress either. But she takes a lot of trouble to set up a serious project and deserves a measure of applause for it. Her chief failing is to introduce an element of decolletage into whatever costume she happens to be wearing. This sartorial quirk was particularly inappropriate in Fantastic Voyage where the costume was a pressure suit, but it didn't look quite right for Walks Far Woman either. She looked like Sticks Out Woman.
Raquel also turned up as a guest star in the latest episode of Mork and Mindy, a slick imported American comedy series in which the one-line gags pile up in struggling heaps. Raquel wasn't quite fast enough for the regulars, but she made up for it with her figure. Playing a ruthless invader from space, she was particularly ruthless with the top buttons of her uniform, which had evidently cracked under the strain.
In the first scene of the Elvis Presley movie Roustabout, Raquel, then at the start of her career, was briefly visible as a teenage walk-on. She didn't say her line particularly well, but her face registered. The best thing she ever did was her small part in Bedazzled where clever direction made it look as if that extraordinary shape of hers were light on its feet. Actually she has to march into position and set up camp for the night. She is Walks Awkwardly Woman. But there is something nice about her.