Classic Hotties: Raquel Welch

You already know we at Movie Hotties are all about bringing you the latest news and images of the finest hotties out there today. But what about all those hotties from the past? Where's the love for them? It just didn't seem right of us to go on and on about the fine hotties roaming the land today and never acknowledge all those who came before. So here we are, with a brand new column dedicated exclusively to profiling the beauties of yesteryear. Welcome to Classic Hotties!

For our inaugural edition of Classic Hotties, we begin with one of the most beloved hotties of the 1960s - the lovely Raquel Welch. The iconic star of films like 1,000,00 BC and FANTASTIC VOYAGE, all you young tikes probably know her from the poster above which, besides being one of the most iconic pinup images of the 1960s, also served as camouflage for Andy's escape tunnel in THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION. You might have also seen a much older version of Raquel shilling Foster Grant sunglasses on TV.

Raquel's path to stardom is the classic Hollywood story of cocktail waitress turned local beauty queen, turned weather girl, turned fresh-faced Hollywood star. After paying her dues with bit parts in various 60s beach movies and rock star vehicles for the likes of Elvis Presley, Raquel's big break was as Loana in the campy caveman epic 1,000,000 BC, where her good looks not only proved to be capable of carrying a movie, but also making that movie a hit.

Of course, like many aspiring young actresses, Raquel sought to parlay her new found success into meatier roles offering as much in the way of acting as they did in T&A. And for a time, she achieved her goals. She broke new ground in movies like 100 RIFLES, where her interracial love scene was a first for Hollywood. She also pushed boundaries in the extraordinarily bizarre MYRA BRECKENRIDGE, exploring the virtually unexplored world of transsexuals and the gay lifestyle, complete with frank depictions of activities many would find too controversial for mainstream movies even today.

Those early acting successes didn't last for Raquel, and the latter half of her career saw her enduring some ups and downs. Though she never did quite get the respect she wanted for her acting skills, she still gets decent parts in various films and TV shows right up to the present day. Probably her greatest claim to fame in the last 30 years has been her fountain of youth beauty. Raquel was doing Playboy spreads at 39 and still wowing them with that curvy figure well into her 50s. That might not be so unusual today, but such longevity was virtually unheard of before the days of Botox and Photoshop.

The combined equivalent of modern day hotties Kelly Brook and Sofia Vergara, Raquel was very much the female sexual icon of her day. Picking up the reins from hotties like Marylin Monroe who proceeded her, she served as pin up girl to the counterculture generation, proving herself not only a vision of beauty, but also of substance. Even today, at the ripe old age of 72, Raquel still looks amazing and proves once and for all that age doesn't always have to displace beauty.