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In an era where Instagram has allowed celebrities to curate their public images as they see fit, the word "sex symbol" has mostly been retired as anyone can be a sex symbol under the right circumstances. Early sex symbol figures like Marilyn Monroe and Brigitte Bardot have never truly gone away, with new generations continuing to discover them through pop culture osmosis or being name-checked in pop songs. In 2023, movie star, model, and international sex symbol Raquel Welch passed away, marking an end to the "classic" era of sex symbols. Her legacy as a sex symbol is well documented, with her biography by Peter Haining boasting the title "Raquel Welch: Sex Symbol to Super Star," not to mention the fact a huge poster of her from "One Million Years B.C." is used to cover the increasingly deep escape hole in Andy Dufresne's jail cell in "The Shawshank Redemption."

Welch was...

Los Angeles – Raquel Welch never let anyone define who she was, despite being touted as a sex symbol in her early career. She defined sexy in films such as “One Million Years B.C.,” “Fantastic Voyage” and the 1970s Three Musketeers series. The movie star and entrepreneur died at age 82 at her home in Los Angeles.

She was born in Chicago as Jo Raquel Tejada (her father was Bolivian). Her family moved to California and she desired a theatrical and dance career, attending San Diego State College on a theater arts scholarship. After marrying her high school sweetheart James Welch – they separated after having two children together – she began her early career in film as Raquel Welch … her agent advised her against a Latina last name. Her first credited film role was in “A Swingin’ Summer” (1964).

Raquel Welch in Chicago circa 2010

Photo credit: Joe Arce of Starstruck Foto for HollywoodChicago.com...

Raquel Welch made a name for herself as an international sex symbol, but also an accomplished thespian as her career progressed. But what are her greatest accomplishments? Scroll down to see Welch’s most notable movies ranked, plucked from a career spanning well over half a century.

After winning beauty pageant titles including Miss San Diego and Maid of California as a teen, she attended San Diego State College on a theater arts scholarship and performed in local theater productions. Then she was a weather forecaster at a local San Diego TV station. And in 1963 she started to pursue roles with movie studios. Welch had a small part in 1964’s “Roustabout” starring Elvis Presley, and she stood out in the beach movie romp “A Swingin’ Summer” in 1965 as a bookworm who eventually tosses her glasses, lets down her hair, heats up the screen and even sings a tune.

Welch’s...

B-movie fans rejoice. AMC, which some of you may remember at one time stood for "American Movie Classics" until the "classic" portions of the name became rather dubious, has just launched Bmc (B-Movie Classics), a subsidiary of AMC's website streaming classic and not-so-classic B-movies from the Golden Age of Hollywood.

Mac McKean, Vice-President of Digital Media for AMC, tells TV Week: “B-movies may have been low-budget and less publicized motion pictures, but they had a huge fan base that transcended generations and still exists today. Bmc is a new platform that caters to an on-demand audience, giving film lovers direct access to B-movies from the 1950s and ’60s.”

The Bmc website greeting goes a little something like this:

"Bikinis! Monsters! Motorcycles! Welcome to Bmc, your new go-to site for B-movies by the likes of John Carpenter (Dark Star) and Roger Corman (Saga of the Viking Women). Now online and in full screen,...