Raquel Welch Quotes

"I wasn't raised thinking of myself or my background as particularly exotic. I felt very American and middle of the road. I knew that I had a little salsa in my blood, but on my mother's side there was the whole English heritage"

"I'm trying to purge myself of all the mannerisms I've used up to this point. I have never had a high opinion of myself as an actress, but I'm determined to develop, and I keep looking for ways to improve"

"I loved her. She was hypnotic. You couldn’t stop looking at her. We were so different. So I didn’t think that I was going to have a shot. I thought everybody wanted blondes" (about Marilyn Monroe)

"There was this perception of Oh, she's just a sexpot. She's just a body. She probably can't walk and chew gum at the same time. In my first couple of movies, I had no dialogue. It was frustrating"

"Americans have always had sex symbols. It's a time-honored tradition and I'm flattered to have been one. But it's hard to have a long, fruitful career once you've been stereotyped that way"

"I do think she was a spectacular talent. There's no question she was a comedic genius, but I did, in person, actually feel like she was some kind of a dockworker in drag" (about Mae West)

"When I walk down the street in this city, people come out of the shops and say, 'See ya on Broadway, Raquel.' Do you know how that makes me feel? Like a million bucks" (about New York)

"Once you get rid of the idea that you must please other people before you please yourself, and you begin to follow your own instincts - only then can you be successful"

"I was not brought up to be a sex symbol, nor is it in my nature to be one. The fact that I became one is probably the loveliest, most glamorous and fortunate misunderstanding"

"There is no communication there. No relationships. You're always waiting for someone to get back to you. So you sit and you sit. People exist in trances" (about Hollywood)

"People don't think I have ability, and I think they are wrong. I've tried to fight it. Marilyn couldn't fight it because she wasn't strong enough. Well I am, and I think I can lick it"

"I got to do what I wanted to do. I wanted to entertain, I wanted to be on film, I wanted to be on Broadway. I’ve always just felt very, very lucky that I was able to do it"

"The Brits, and a lot of the rest of Europe, seemed to really love exotic women. The fact that I was American and exotic just made me more appealing to them"

"The funny thing about selling out is that at the time you don't always know that's what you're doing. I mean sometimes you only find out in retrospect"

"Not everybody is comfortable with my ethnicity. When I first came along in the business, they didn’t really like the idea of my name being Raquel"

"There was a portion of the media that was very supportive when I began. But the media can be very destructive, too. There's a lot of power there"

"For years I felt like the Rodney Dangerfield of sex symbols. I got no respect" (on her treatment from Hollywood producers and directors)

"In the past I sometimes felt that I overstepped my limits, or that I was ready to swim in the deep waters, but I was still dabbling in the shallows"

"I know that being successful money-wise isn't the answer. And being successful in the eyes of a lot of other people isn't the answer either"

"I think all sex goddesses have basically been unhappy. I know we sound like ungracious asses, but it's like being a shell and I'm tired of it"

"I remember James Coburn once said to me, "You know what's the sexiest thing of all? A little mystery." And he was so right about that"

"I was really caught by his magnetism, his sort of star quality that you could see even when he was in long shot" (about Burt Reynolds)

"I just wanted to clear my reputation and get back to my work, my work in movies" (after winning a US $10 million lawsuit with MGM)

"My whole career has been about being noticed, just like any other actor or actress, so I am grateful that people are still interested"

"What I do on the screen is not to be equated with what I do in my private life. Privately, I am understated and dislike any hoopla"

"For some reason, somebody with her sex appeal, her indescribable attraction, is rarely taken seriously" (about Marilyn Monroe)

"Hollywood doesn't honor comedy and it doesn't honor sex appeal. And they definitely don't give awards to either of them"

"The Three Musketeers turned out to be a real eye-opener for me, because I had no idea that I was good at comedy"

"That first moment, when fame hits you and the furnace opens up, you're caught in the heat. It's almost paralyzing"

"I do feel very fortunate, because I had no suspicion that a dinosaur movie would ever pay off for me as an actress"

"I made decisions based on, What will my kids think of this? I tried not to trash myself. I felt I owed them that"

"My failings as a mother weren't intentional--and my kids grew up to be good people--but the failings were there"

"I was a single mother of a couple of kids and found myself being a sex symbol, which just didn’t compute at all"

"just another American actress with a nice rack" (self description, from an interview in Mens Health magazine)

"My first husband was a good person. The second turned into a Svengali - I felt I was being manipulated"

"He’s been with everything. Anything that moves. I mean he’s a famous lothario" (about Warren Beatty)

"Being a sex symbol was rather like being a convict. That I was locked in this image and couldn’t get out"

"I think it was a different role for women. Women watch other women, and they are affected by that"

"The most erogenous zone is the brain. It's all happening there. Otherwise, it's just body parts"

"I couldn't stand that my husband was being unfaithful. I am Raquel Welch - understand?"

"I think I was just so enamoured with Frank Sinatra, you know. He's hypnotic"

"I'll admit I'm extremely strong-minded, I don't know any other way to be"

"My father came from a country called Bolivia. He was of Spanish descent"

"I wasn’t that pushover kind of a girl. And I think that left an impression"

"It is nice to be noticed, I think it is much better than not being noticed"

"I think I was always more intimidated by my image than anyone else"

"The doeskin bikini struck a chord. I became every male's fantasy"

"That was the hardest part, to realize that I was really an object"

"I still call myself an actress. I'm not an actor. I'm not a guy"

"If you have physical attractiveness, you don't have to act"

"I think that whole sex-symbol thing is an anachronism"

"I'm optimistic about whatever is going to happen"

"Interesting is better than beautiful"

"I don’t see anything as important as publicity"