In a 1984 photoshoot for the Observer Magazine, Raquel Welch, who is now 81 years old, was in “excellent shape for a woman who has endured 44 years, 27 films, three marriages, and children.” She was promoting the release of her exercise book, Raquel: The Raquel Welch Total Beauty and Fitness Program, by comparing herself to Jane Fonda, Victoria Principal, and Linda Evans.
The book highlighted Welch’s “most treasured physical and mental beauty secrets” and was inspired by Hatha yoga, which she discovered seven years prior. The mind and the body are interconnected, Welch confided.
Thousands of ladies had inquired about her diet. She stated, “When people hear that I have given up salt, sugar, oil, and processed foods, they are horrified.” A third of the book is either Welch exercising (in skimpy clothing) or not exercising (in skimpy clothing).
Welch wore a spaghetti-strap zebra-print bodysuit while ‘jocks’ from the US Olympic male swimming squad surrounded her wearing – and not wearing – budgie-smugglers to promote the book.
Welch’s salt and oil consumption may have briefly spiked to dangerously unsafe levels during the shooting, given that the swimmers look to be swimming in oil rather than water and also appear to be performing a type of proto-twerk in her face.
Welch stated that the idea for the book came to her during her tenure as Lauren Bacall’s substitute in the Broadway play Woman of the Year, as opposed to a publisher’s suggestion after Jane Fonda’s Workout sold millions of books and films.
“I love Jane, but that book was kind of, well, tacky,” Welch remarked coldly.
