Actress Raquel Welch

Behold, my one thousandth subject on this blog - just in time for its tenth anniversary!

And who better than Raquel Welch, one of the most gorgeous women in Hollywood and an enduring legend? 

Born Raquel Tejada in Chicago to a Bolivian father and an Anglo-Saxon mother (her first name is Spanish for Rachel, and her surname came from her marriage to high-school sweetheart James Welch), Raquel Welch became to male Baby Boomers what Marilyn Monroe had been to their older brothers of the Silent Generation - a bombshell goddess, thanks largely in part to her 1966 movie One Million Years B.C., where she played a cavewoman in a deerskin bikini.

Some of her later movies were even more daring, such as the ribald Peter Sellers movie The Magic Christian (also featuring Ringo Starr)  and Myra Breckenridge, a movie based on a Gore Vidal novel about a girl who used to be a guy (our heroine in the title role).   

She could spoof sex appeal as well as sell it, as she did in a "Mork & Mindy" episode as a nefarious alien bounty hunter out for Mork's head.  But as the years went by, Ms. Welch concentrated on more serious work, such as "An American Family," an original PBS series about a Hispanic family in Los Angeles. 

Like, how about that?  Raquel Welch in an original series on a highbrow network whose first-run scripted shows are almost always British imports!  :-D 

Ms. Welch (above, in April 2010), has been married four times and is the mother of actress Tahnee Welch, who's best known for her role in the Ron Howard film Cocoon.  Raquel Welch, who turned 76 earlier this month and is still active, has a successful wig business, and she also markets jewelry and skincare products. 

Don't tell Raquel Welch what she can and can't do. :-)