Miss Fairest of the Fair, San Diego, Ca. [1957]
Mother of Tahnee Welch and Damon Welch.
One of the bombshells shown in The Shawshank Redemption (1994). (The other two were Rita Hayworth and Marilyn Monroe.)
Profiled in the book "Film Fatales: Women in Espionage Films and Television, 1962-1973" by Tom Lisanti and Louis Paul (McFarland, 2002).
Revealed that her first marriage was the best of her four.
Second husband, producer Patrick Curtis, reportedly was one of several infants who took turns playing the baby of Olivia de Havilland in Gone with the Wind (1939).
She was crowned Miss La Jolla La Jolla and Miss Southern California before dropping out of college in San Diego where she had an acting scholarship, to get married to her high-school sweetheart, James Welch, at 19.
She was fired from Cannery Row (1982) and replaced by Debra Winger. She then sued MGM and won a $10 million judgement.
Son Damon Welch married the daughter of England and Yorkshire cricket legend Freddie Trueman.
Ten months after the large age gap brought her relationship with Gary Stretch to an end, she dated Los Angeles restaurateur Richard Palmer, who is 15 years her junior. Richard left his fiancée, actress Cathy Moriarty for Raquel after they met in October 1997 at Ago, the West Hollywood restaurant owned by Robert De Niro.
Was a former cocktail waitress.
Was named "The Worst Actress of All Time" in Harry Medved and Michael Medved's 1980 book "The Golden Turkey Awards", beating out Candice Bergen, Mamie Van Doren, and even Vera Ralston. Interestingly, her co-star in Bluebeard (1972), Richard Burton, was named "The Worst Actor of All Time" in the same book.
Was promoted as a sex symbol by her then-husband Patrick Curtis, a film producer and Hollywood press agent.