Overnight, the death of Raquel Welch, the legendary American actress and model, was confirmed. The star had suffered from a “short illness” and died “peacefully” on Wednesday morning, February 15, 2023. She was 82 years old. While she conquered the silver screen throughout her time in Hollywood in such blockbuster pictures as One Million Years BC, Bedazzled, and 100 Rifles to name a few, she had one major regret. You never get a Bond girl.
Throughout the 1960s, Sean Connery embodied James Bond in six films with countless Bond girls on his arm. And given that Welch was the biggest sex symbol of the ’60s, it only made sense for her to join the series as well.
And there was a time when she was destined to become a Bond girl, too. In Connery’s 1965 007 movie, Thunderball, he went up against Domino, a femme fatale who began her journey attacking the hero before he switched sides.
Welch recalled in her 2010 memoir, Raquel: Beyond the Divide, that Bond bosses wanted her to play Domino.
She wrote: “I almost became a Bond girl! Auditioned for Thunderball. [Bond boss] Cubby Broccoli spotted my photo in a Life magazine design with the headline “The Great Girl Dry End!”
Before long, Bond’s bosses contacted Welch’s managers and arranged a meeting.
“The subsequent buzz about town excited so much that it enabled me to secure a long-term contract at 20th Century Fox,” Welch wrote.
Unfortunately, this ended up being the beginning of Welch’s downfall.
She continued, “Due to a technology related to start dates and contract options,” she added. Fox put me in the sci-fi classic Fantastic Voyage [instead of Thunderball]. “
Fantastic Voyage was a 1966 film that starred Welch alongside Stephen Boyd and Donald Pleasence. The image involved the submarine crew being reduced to microscopic size before exploring the inside of the human body.
While Fantastic Voyage ended up being a huge hit — earning $12 million (about $110 million in 2023) at the box office on a shoestring budget of $5 million — Welch admitted the role didn’t fulfill her.
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In her memoirs, Welch explained that she was “disappointed” at losing out on joining the history of James Bond.
“Here I was ready to snuggle with Sean Connery,” she sighed. “But eight months have been identified floating through the human bloodstream in a wet suit.”
Although Welch and Connery didn’t work together on Thunderball – or any other James Bond movie – rumor has it that they met up later.
The two Hollywood stars reportedly got involved in a dirty tryst together (via Purple Clover). Things never went further, as Connery later married Micheline Roquebrune, with whom he remained until his death in 2020.
Welch has been married four times throughout her life. And in 2011, she vowed that she would never marry again.
She said, “I’m just not fit for that anymore. I love guys and I love their company, but I’m very independent and self-motivated.” She added that she would be happy to continue meeting men, but anything else she wasn’t interested in.
She admitted, “I’m up for dating, but quite frankly, there’s a dwindling pool of eligible people my age. I don’t mind traditional male-female roles, but, as you can tell, I’m a strong-minded woman. I’m sure I’d challenge an awful lot of Guys. They don’t want to deal with it or, if they do want to deal with it, maybe I’m not interested in that.”
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