Raquel Welch’s Husband Felt Like A ‘Champion’ After Their Marriage – A Look Inside Her Dating History

Dec 02, 2021 by apost team

While most will remember her for being one of Hollywood's most notorious bombshells, Raquel Welch was a single mother raising two children when she first rose to fame. She has also had a successful career and become an icon for her beauty.

Born in Chicago towards the end of WWII, Welch had a somewhat simple upbringing, growing up in "the projects," which were governmental housing in San Diego, California. Her father, originally from Bolivia, worked as an aeronautical engineer, while her mother, Josephine Sarah Hall, was a homemaker. 

The eldest of three, Welch, described her family home as "strangely chilly," thanks to her parents' lack of tenderness and physical affection. Her relationship with her father had also been rocky, with the former actress admitting his strict demand for manners and following the rules "terrified" the whole family. She found solace in singing along to the radio tunes, an activity that would even prompt a rare break from her father's otherwise moody self.

For Welch, performing had become an escape from her turbulent life at home, and so began her love for the stage. As a young child, her mother had already noticed Welch's talent and enrolled her at the San Diego Junior Theatre. In her teen years, she met her first love, Jim Wesley Welch, an avid dancer who, much unlike her dad, would shower Raquel Welch with the affection she had long been "hungry" for.

Welch would go on to marry Jim but their love was not meant to last. The star has been married four times in her life and doesn’t plan to remarry. Read on to learn more about her love life and why her third husband said he was a “champion” after their divorce. 

Welch had already been regarded as a 'beauty queen' in her town, thanks to a pageant she had participated in – and won – the year prior. "My picture started appearing in the local papers, and complete strangers began to recognize me," Welch wrote. "It was my first taste of small-town fame, and it was exhilarating!" 

That win would lead her to take part in many more pageants, which eventually led her to win the title for 'Maid of California,' the same year she received a scholarship to study theater at the San Diego State College. 

After enrolling, Jim Welch asked for her hand in marriage. Not wasting a second, Welch dropped out of college, and the two got hitched in Las Vegas. In the meantime, the young bride became pregnant just months after their wedding. Over the next two years, the couple would have two children: Damon, a son, and Tahnee, a daughter. 

While Welch loved being a mother and wife, she still yearned for a career in acting and had been receiving offers left and right from Hollywood producers. She dreamt of one day moving to New York to pursue theater, but her husband was not as keen. After three years of marriage, the couple would divorce, and Welch would make a "precarious living" through modeling and as a cocktail waitress, barely scraping by as a single mother. "My breakup with Jim remains the most painful decision of my entire life," Welch admitted in her memoir. 

As a young aspiring actor in Hollywood, Welch met one-time child star Patrick Curtis, who became her business manager, and made it his mission to turn Welch into a bombshell. 

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After her divorce from Curtis in 1972, Welch was single for a while and really focused on her family and career. She later married André Weinfeld in 1980 and the couple was together for a decade before their divorce in 1990. 

Despite their separation, both Welch and Weinfeld maintain that they ended on good terms. “We had a very happy marriage,” said Weinfeld to Closer Weekly. Weinfeld explained that the reason for the breakup was due to their demanding careers and need to be in different locations. He said, “She moved back to La La Land and I stayed in New York (City) and Paris.”

Weinfeld boasted in the same interview that having stayed married to Welch for 10 years made him “the champion.” He elaborated, “Today, Hollywood marriages last three months and that’s considered long.”

With four failed marriages behind her, Welch is not very interested in trying again. “I’m not really trying to date with any real seriousness,” she said. “You know, I go out occasionally but you know, it’s not a campaign that I’m on. I’m busy a lot and I like to work. I guess I’m in love with my life in general."

Welch continued, "It’s been a lot of fun. It’s been demanding, to a point. A lot of men don’t like that anyhow. They don’t like their lady to have other things that take precedent sometimes. They don’t particularly like that. That’s what women everywhere don’t want to hear, but unfortunately, it does happen to be true. I’m kind of a realist.”

Are you a fan of Welch’s work? What do you think about her ex-husband calling himself a champion? Let us know and be sure to pass this on to your friends and family.