Here’s a look back atRaquel Welch’s past romances.
While many swooned over the longtime actress and international sex symbol over the course of her lengthy career in the spotlight, Raquel found love several times prior toher death on Feb. 15 at age 82.
“I don’t regret the marriages. I had real feelings for all of them,“she continued. “At the time I thought it was love and we could make a great life but it wasn’t in the cards.” Part of the reason why those relationships didn’t work out was because she was “too set in [her] ways,” Raquel said.
She continued: “I like what I do, I actually enjoy being me, and I make a very good living at it, and I’m happy. I don’t have to have a man.” Despite her 2015 feelings of “not being good” at marriage, she didn’t rule out the possibility at another.
Keep scrolling for everything to know about the actress' four marriages.
James Welch
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Raquel’s"first true love"was James “Jim” Welch, who she knew before amassing fame in the late 1960s.In fact, they met when she was 15! In her 2010 memoirRaquel: Beyond the Cleavage, the actress recalled the early feelings she had for James when they were young.
In the book, Raquel wrote about her initial interaction with James, revealing that she first took notice of him when she was running to her American government class in school. Not only did she describe him as"gorgeous” with “a cool demeanor,“butshe admitted that it was love at first sight.
“From the first minute I saw him, I secretly knew that I was destined to have his babies. In my emotionally charged, romantic young mind, I fixated on Jim as ‘my one and only,'” reads an excerpt from the memoir, perABC News.
Raquel and James’ love story continued throughout high school. He was on the football team, she was a cheerleader. He’d pick her up in the morning, they’d drive to school together. “My schoolgirl crush on Jim lulled me into believing that he was the man of my dreams,” Raquel wrote.
Everett
But they were also very different. Raquel was very chatty and James did not talk as much. He drank beer, she “never touched the stuff,” she wrote in her book. She graduated with honors and a college scholarship, and he dropped out of high school and went off to Peru on a tuna clipper.
After breaking up for a short while, Raquel and James rekindled their relationship when he returned home. She dropped out of college and the two tied the knot in Las Vegas in 1959. James' parents approved of their marriage, while Raquel’s were less than thrilled.
That same year, theyhad their first child together, son Damon. Two years later, they welcomed their second child, a daughter named Latanne “Tahnee” Welch. Raquel was 19 years old when she had her first, which she described as a “painfully young age” that in part led to their divorce in 1964.
Another factor that led to their split was the actress' career ambitions combined with James' “own ideas.” Despite their breakup, Raquel famously kept his last name.
Patrick Curtis
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Soon after, Raquel’s filmOne Million Years B.C.was released in 1966, which is largely regarded as her breakout role. The following year, she wed Patrick at Paris' City Hall in February 1967.
Their relationship was brief, marking the shortest of Raquel’s four marriages. The couple divorced in 1972. Patrick died at the age of 83 in November 2022, less than a year before Raquel’s passing in February 2023.
André Weinfeld
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Ten years later, the married couple split in 1990.
Richard Palmer
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Raquel met restaurateur Richard Palmer at a party in 1996. The Bronx native began his kitchen career serving up pizzas in New York before transitioning his business into one filled with a fortune in California.
According to aNew York Postarticle profiling Richard in 2000, he owned two in Beverly Hills, one in Encino and one in Orange — with a Bloomfield location (just outside Denver, Colorado) in the works at the time. Hissecret to successwas keeping the New York style at the heart of his recipes.
As for Raquel (whom he married in 1996),he described her as “a living legend"and happily explained the perks of being her husband. “I get great seats at the fights. You go wherever you want to go. It’s great,” he joked.
They separated in 2003 and later divorced.
source: people.com
