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Actress Raquel Welch died on Feb. 15 at the age of 82 following a previously unreported brief illness. Raquel grew up on stage, as she was a trained ballerina before becoming a beauty queen and moving into acting. She landed her first professional acting gigs in the 1960s, with the 1966 roles in Fantastic Voyage and One Million Years B.C. thought of as her breakout roles. The latter film turned her into an international sex symbol due to her skimpy doeskin bikini costume. Raquel previously told the Los Angeles Times that she was attracted to the role in One Million Years B.C. because of the strength of her character. “I liked that there was something very superhero about her. At least I wasn’t one of those mincing little girls; I never wanted to be that,” she noted.
Raquel was already a mother by the time she became a world-renowned star. She had two children with her first husband, James Welch, who she married about a year after graduating high school. Read on to learn about the children Raquel and James brought into the world in 1959 and 1961.
Damon Welch
The oldest child of James and Raquel is their son Damon Welch, who was born on Nov. 6, 1959. Damon followed his Golden Globe Award-winning mother‘s footsteps into the industry, but only for a short while. He has just one acting credit under his IMDb page for The Beloved, in which he played a little boy when he was two years old. He also served as a production assistant in 1979’s The Day the Earth Got Stoned and a production associate in his mother’s Raquel: Total Beauty and Fitness, which debuted in 1984. He contributed to two productions as himself as well.
Damon lives an extremely private life and does not have any known public social media profiles. He was once married to the daughter of an English cricket player, Rebecca Trueman.
Tahnee Welch
Tahnee Welch, James and Raquel’s second child, was born on Dec. 29, 1961. She lives a very private life like her brother but has done much more in the acting space. She has 21 acting credits listed on her IMDb page, the last of which occurred in 1999. She was an uncredited actor in The Beloved like her older brother and got back on the screen with a starring role in the Italian romcom, Amarsi un po’… Other films she is known for include 1985’s Cocoon and its sequel, Cocoon: The Return, 1987’s Sleeping Beauty, and 1996’s I Shot Andy Warhol.
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