I Am Raquel Welch, on CW

Hammer Films made her a super-star, but not in a horror movie. She broke out in a big way in a silly prehistoric epic, thanks to her cave-woman bikini. She immediately became an international celebrity and pin-up poster queen. Yet, the films she made at the height of her fame were of inconsistent quality, for reasons beyond her control. Whether they were fans or not, viewers should feel fresh new respect watching Olivia Cheng’s I Am Raquel Welch, which premieres Saturday on CW.

Everyone knew Welch had a bombshell figure. Even if they hadn’t seen One Million Years B.C., they knew the posters. Unfortunately, she still had to sit through ogling interview from talk show hosts acting like horny teen boys. However, the same guest they were drooling over was already a single mother when she arrived in Hollywood.

Cheng and company do an okay job covering Welch’s most notable films, including B.C., 100 Rifles (wherein she shared an interracial kiss with James Brown), Kansas City Bomber (which she also produced, before producing was the norm for big stars), and The Three Musketeers, for which she won a Golden Globe. Unfortunately, they gloss over her early but substantial role in Fantastic Voyage, which is still a really cool sf film and Bluebeard (the closest she got to the horror genre).

Ironically, some of the best analysis focuses on a film Welch never appeared in. When MGM fired her from Cannery Row, despite her legally binding contract, she sued for breach and on age-discrimination grounds, winning a legal victory that would become an important precedent. (The truth is, all those big business villains Hollywood like to portray are really just the studios and stars projecting their own questionable ethics and practices onto more reputable industries.)

Indeed, Hollywood studios did not do Welch a lot of favors. She was one of the last big stars who was still signed to an old-fashioned studio contract when her fame initially exploded. Unfortunately, that meant she made a lot of films that were better for the studio than her long-term career.

Eventually, she would reinvent herself quite successfully. Indeed, there is much to admire about the late Welch. Yet, Cheng only briefly touches on what seems to the two sides of her life that some might consider contradictory. In some ways she was socially conservative (with a small “c”), valuing family and the military (as a regular on Bob Hope’s USO tours), while explicitly rejecting the baggage of the “feminist” label. Yet, she fought for her legal rights and embraced her femininity on-screen.

Cheng’s on-camera interview subjects might seem like a rather odd assortment, because they mostly knew Welch from her later television and Broadway work. Of course, the sad truth is not a lot of folks from her studio years are left to reminisce. However, viewers hear extensively from her son Damon (but not all from her thesp-daughter, Tahnee).

I Am Raquel Welch really makes it clear she had a lot of guts and was admirably resilient. Frankly, her life-story was a heck of an American story. Highly recommended, it airs Saturday night (3/8) on CW.