US actress Raquel Welch, often credited with paving the way for modern-day action heroines in Hollywood films, has died at the age of 82.
The star passed away peacefully on Wednesday morning after a brief illness, her manager said.
Welch became an international sex symbol in the 1960s, widely remembered for playing a bikini-clad cavewoman in the 1966 film One Million Years B.C.
She also won a Golden Globe for her role in 1974’s The Three Musketeers.
Born Jo-Raquel Tejada in 1940, Welch grew up in California, where she won teen beauty pageants and later became a local weather forecaster.
During a brief stint in Dallas, Texas, the divorced mother-of-two modelled for the Neiman Marcus clothing store and worked as a cocktail waitress.
Her big break came in 1964 soon after she moved back to California, when she scored cameos in A House Is Not A Home, and Roustabout, a musical starring Elvis Presley.
