Jimmy Carter served as the 39th President of the United States between 1977 and 1981 and was considered a breath of fresh air after the Nixon and Ford years.
What people love about him is that he is a family man who never took any advantage of post-presidential popularity. President Carter has been reported saying: “I don’t see anything wrong with it; I don’t blame other people for doing it. It just never had been my ambition to be rich.”
The Carters lead a very normal and modest life, and it has always been like that. What’s most, The Rolling Stone revealed back in 2011 that the former president shops at the local Dollar General.
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Both he and his wife have been part of the Habitat for Humanity for many years and helped renovate around 4,300 houses in 14 different countries.
Unfortunately, his foundation, The Carter Center, released a statement that left many devastated. After a few hospital visits, former President Carter has been admitted to hospice.
“After a series of short hospital stays, former US President Jimmy Carter today decided to spend his remaining time at home with his family and receive hospice care instead of additional medical intervention. He has the full supportof his family and his medical team.”
Over the years, he has dealt with several serious health issues, including brain cancer. In 2019, he underwent brain surgery to remove mounting pressure.
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According to CNN, as of 2018, Carter is the oldest living president following the passing of George H.W. Bush who passed away at 94.
Besides being a former President, Jimmy Carter is also a former farmer, a US Navy Lieutenant, and a Sunday School teacher.
From the moment they left The White House back in 1981 and handed over the presidency to Ronald Reagan, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter have been living in their family home in Plains, Georgia. The house, which is valued according to Zillow at $209,996, was built in 1961, when the Carters welcomed their fourth child in their lives and needed a bigger place.
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After serving as a president, Carter returned to his roots once again because he didn’t want to “capitalize financially on being in the White House,” according to Washington Post.
Our thoughts and prayers are with Jimmy Carter and his family as they remain by his side during this particularly difficult time.
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Actress Debra Paget, born Dabralee Griffin on August 19, 1933, in Denver, Colorado, was so enchantingly beautiful when young that legendary director Cecil B DeMille spoke of her as ”touched by the hand of God.”
Her parents were part of the showbiz and both Debra and her two sisters, Tala Loring and Lisa Gaye, pursued careers in the world of film.
Speaking of herself as of a ”post-depression” baby who was welcomed into the world during a devastating and prolonged economic recession, Debra still held her parents in high regard.
“When I looked back, we had so much love in our home,” Debra said in an interview.
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At a very young age, Debra starred in a production of Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor. She then proceeded to be part of a number of films, and her ‘exotic’ looks helped her get the title “The most beautiful legs in the world” when the National Association of Hosiery Manufactures polled 15,000 people in the industry.
She signed a contract with 20th Century Fox when she was just 14, but it wasn’t until Paramount Pictures borrowed her for The Ten Commandments that Debra made her most successful movie.
Although she has been blue eyed, she needed to wear brown contact lenses for the sake of the filming. “If it hadn’t been for the lenses, I wouldn’t have gotten the part. They were awful to work in because the klieg lights heated them up,” she said.
Speaking of the film, which was extremely successful and won seven Academy Awards, Debra said, ”It was probably the highlight of my career.”
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Then, when she turned 22, another life changing movie followed, Elvis Presley’s first movie Love Me Tender.
Speaking of the moment she first met the famous singer who took America by storm, Debra said, “Although I usually don’t form an opinion of a person until I have met him.
“Frankly I looked forward to my first meeting with Elvis Presley with mixed emotions. I’d heard and read a lot about this new young singing sensation from Tennessee—and most of it was not complimentary.”
When Milton Berle introduced them months prior to the filming of the movie when the two were part of his show, Elvis grabbed Debra’s hand firmly and said, “I’m glad to meet you, Miss Paget.” He then excused himself and returned with a chair for Debra’s mother.
“We were together for only a couple of hours but sometimes you can learn more about a person in a short span of time than in weeks of seeing one another constantly. I felt I did. From the very beginning, Elvis impressed me as a pleasant, sincere, obliging young man,” Debra recalled.
Rock and roll singer Elvis Presley kisses Debra Paget in a still from ‘Love Me Tender’ in Los Angeles in 1956. (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
Elvis, as everyone in America, got infatuated with Debra and her beauty and even asked her to marry him, but her parents objected, and being a good Christian, she wouldn’t possibly do anything against her mom and dad’s will.
Debra and Elvis’s relationship was sort of family-oriented. “From the time he first came to the house, my folks have considered Elvis a member of the Paget clan—a feeling which, I believe, he reciprocated,” Debra explained. “I was very shy, very quiet and very immature for my age. I was in my very early 20’s but I was emotionally more like a 16-year-old. Elvis and I just sort of came together like a couple of children really.”
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Elvis was enchanted, and soon, many learned of his admiration for Debra. It was believed that it was so strong that many young women altered their appearance to resemble Debra, including the makeup and the hairstyle. Among them was Priscilla Presley, whom Elvis later married.
When Debra turned Elvis down, she met and later married Howard Hughes, a famous film producer and billionaire.
Today, Debra is 89 but not much is known about her personal life.
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The Full House star Candace Cameron never misses a chance to share with the world how much she loves her husband of 26 years, the NHL hockey star Valeri Bure. She says that their marriage, as any other out there, had gone through thick and thin, but what made them stay strong is their deep faith and love for God.
“There have been several tough years, in a row, ups and downs, bad attitudes and bad decisions, but we’ve persevered. We rode them out. We loved each other through them. We kept the focus; God’s glory. We are both better for it. I’m so grateful and thankful for the man I married. Neither of us are perfect, far from it, and will continue to make mistakes because we are human. But God’s Word and His grace see us through – striving to be the best of ourselves in Him. To God be the glory.”
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Candice and Valeri dated for two years before they tied the knot. They have three children together, Natasha, Lev, and Maksim. They always tried raising them in the the way of the Lord.
Well, being considered someone who is a huge believer in God, a recent photo of the couple caused a stir and made Candice a subject of criticism.
Namely, Valeri shared the photo in question which shows him having his arm around his wife’s shoulder and his hand on her chest. Her fans warned her that the photo was inappropriate for a ‘Christian star’ of her stature, but she still re-shared it and even sent a message through a video in which she could be seen laughing and saying, “Sorry if it offended you… I’m actually not sorry.” Further, the actress said, “I’m glad that we have fun together after so many years.”
According to her, the ‘controversial’ photo only demonstrated the results of a “good and healthy marriage” after that many years together.
Like it or not, the truth is that Harry and Meghan make one of the most power couples there are. From the moment the world learned they were dating, all eyes have been on them. The attention they received from the media has been so extensive that many believe Meghan being under scrutiny by the press had a lot to do with the couple’s decision to step down from their royal duties and settle in the States.
Before meeting Harry, Meghan Markle, who was born in Los Angeles, California, on August 4, 1981, has had quite a career in the world of film. At the time she stared dating the prince, who was one of the most loved and most popular members of the royal family, Meghan was playing the role of paralegal Zane on Suits.
In fact, being the daughter of Thomas Markle, a lighting director and director of photography, she spent a great deal of her childhood on the set of a number of movies, accompanying Thomas, with whom she used to be very close.
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Although she was familiar with how the industry worked, Meghan reportedly never wanted her story to be a cliché and she refused to be known as the L.A. girl who dreamed of becoming an actress, so she attended the Northwestern University where she studied communication. Later on, she moved to Illinois to double-major in both theater and international relations at the prestigious Evanston school.
She first caught the public’s eye as a briefcase girl on the game show Deal or No Deal.
“I was the ill-fated number 26, which for some reason no one would ever choose,” she told Esquire. “I would end up standing up there forever in these terribly uncomfortable and inexpensive five-inch heels just waiting for someone to pick my number so I could go and sit down.”
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At the beginning of her successful acting career, Meghan met her first husband, Trevor Engelson.
According to IMDB, he was born on October 23, 1976, in Great Neck, Long Island, New York, and attended the University of Southern California’s School of Communications.
He entered the world of film working as a production assistant and then worked his way to become a film producer. Over the years, he’s worked on a number of projects such as the 2006 film Remember Me, starring Robert Pattinson. He has also been involved in productions such as License to Wed and All About Steve.
After dating for seven years, Meghan and Trevor tied the knot at a ceremony which took place at the Jamaica Inn in Ocho Rios in Jamaica. The celebration lasted for three days during which around 100 guests attended parties, drinking games at the beach, brunches, and even a wheelbarrow race.
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Meghan being a divorcee when she met Harry was something Buckingham Palace would rather not speak about or highlight.
Fast forward to this day, Meghan and Harry are happily married and have two children together.
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In the recent Netflix documentary featuring their life as a couple, as well as their lives before meeting each other, never-before seen photos of Meghan have been shown to the public.
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On one of the photos, Meghan poses with her mom Doria Ragland, and on another one, she could be seen playing. A a third, when she was about nine or ten, shows Meghan with a touch of makeup.
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A school photo of Meghan wearing a white polo-neck t-shirt, showing off her smile, was also seen in the trailer.
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Most of you may have not heard of Rita Pavone, but this Italian’s singer life story is truly a fascinating one.
Possessing inner talent for singing and an enchanting voice, she seemed to be destined to reach stardom and become a famous name in the music industry.
For Pavone, it all started when she began singing at different student parties and then at various bars in her hometown of Turin. Her mother believed that music wasn’t the way forward for Rita. “It was the last resort. I had almost decided to drop everything. I had been singing since the age of nine, but I was unable to emerge and go beyond local notoriety. My mother advised me to put my dreams of glory on the back burner,” Pavone said.
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Her father, however, was very supportive of Pavone’s wish to make a name for herself one day and encouraged her to take part at one of the greatest competitions of the time, the “Rally of the Unknown.” He even wrote a letter to the organizer of the talent show, Teddy Reno, and asked him to give his daughter a spot. The number of people who took part was 20,000, but eventually, Pavone won the competition and she became a star almost overnight, with her first album being recorded mere weeks after winning the competition.
“To this day, I still wonder [what the secret to my success was], and I can’t explain it. Wherever I went, from Brazil to England, from France to Germany, I was able to enter the international hit parades with songs translated into foreign languages or made specifically for that market,” Rita explained.
“I myself was the first to marvel at all this interest in me. Perhaps I possessed a particular type of vocality, a bit high-pitched, cutting, but deeply personal.”
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She added: “I think this strong personality was my trump card. Having personality means not going unnoticed. Today, however, there is a rampant tendency to copy others, and this has inevitably led to many “photocopied products.” In my case I also had a face halfway between a girl and a boy, red hair freckled face.”
After selling hundreds of thousands of albums in Italy, Pavone was asked to the United States to audition for RCA Records. A t the time, many predicted she would be the next great thing, but in the midst of the Beatlemania and people’s affection for Elvis, who was one of Pavone’s greatest idols, that didn’t seem to be an easy task.
While at the States, Pavone performed with the likes of Diana Ross and The Supremes, Ella Fitzgerald, and Tom Jones. Moreover, she appeared several times on Ed Sullivan Show and in performances at the legendary Carnegie Hall in New York.
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During an occasion, she met Elvis Presley in person and he gave her a signed painting.
One day, while recording with her producer, Chet Atkins, in the “Music City,” Pavone, who didn’t understand English at the time, overheard her “muse,” Brenda Lee, talking about Elvis. She didn’t understand why at first, but she soon learned that the King of Rock&Roll would visit the recording studio. There was a huge crowd gathered in front of it, waiting to meet Presley.
“Suddenly, there was a chill because I wanted to meet him. So I went to Chet Atkins, asking him the big favor of letting me know him when at one point,” Pavone recalled.
“I saw a crowd of people arming themselves, they seemed to be preparing the landing in Normandy, he absolutely didn’t want to be disturbed, they said. So I started whining like children do, it wasn’t possible to waste such an opportunity, I convinced them, but they made me a lot of recommendations.”
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She then added, “I waited until midnight in the RCA studios, until they entered: first, his lawyer, his secretary, his sound engineer, all his staff. And then him. He had yellow Ray-Bans that I had never seen before, the sideburns it was beautiful. He came in and greeted us and he came towards me. I asked him if I could have a photo of him and he was very helpful, he told me I could have even more. So he called his secretary who gave me a canvas where he wrote: Best wishes to Rita, then he gave me a kiss and left.
“His manager, the famous Colonel Parker, didn’t want me to meet him. But when he came out of the studio, he saw me and said, ‘But I know you! You went to the Ed Sullivan show.’ It was Elvis who recognized me. I asked him for a photo, but he even gave me one of his paintings.”
Meeting Elvis Presley is something Pavone will remember until the rest of her life.
“I have it at home! My son, who is very realistic and pragmatic, said that when I die, he will sell it! A man of that stature and popularity who was so down to earth blew me away,” she stated.
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After spending some years in America, Pavone decided to return to Italy where she was adored by millions.
She married Teddy Reno, the organizer of the talent show that turned her into a star. However, Teddy being 20 years her senior wasn’t accepted well by her family and the public. Her father was even mad when he heard the two were dating, but some time after they tied the knot, he visited them in Switzerland, where they still live today, and told her he was sorry he didn’t respect her choice.
Many of her songs entered the charts of UK, Germany, and even Brazil and other countries.
Pavone announced her retirement from the stage in the mid-2000s, but she returned in 2016 and competed in the Italian version of Dancing with the Stars. She also performed at the legendary Sanremo Festival in 2020, and again the year after, in a Christmas special.
One thing is certain, Rita Pavone has had an impressive career.
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The dust still hasn’t settled following the allegations and the secrets revealed in Prince Harry’s all-tell memoir Spare.
Described as “Vulnerable and heartfelt, brave and intimate,” Spare shook the royal family, despite them not commenting on anything related to the book that caused a stir not only in Britain but all over the world.
Among the rest, Harry spoke of his niece and nephews, saying that he wasn’t invited to William and Kate’s home as much as he wished to upon Prince George’s birth. Harry also spoke of Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis and said that he fears they could “end up” just like him.
But he also opened up about his relationship with wife Meghan Markle.
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When the two started dating, Harry was very pleased.
“Guys, I met a girl,” a friend who appeared in the couple’s documentary recalled Harry saying. “We just met, but I think she’s the one.”
Meghan felt the same. She was aware the two were getting involved in a long-distance relationship, but that didn’t stop neither of them to continue seeing each other without anyone knowing about that.
“Everything was text and FaceTime, we’d talk for hours. It felt exciting but not in the way people would assume it would be,” Meghan said. “It was just relaxed and easy.”
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When Britain learned their favorite Prince was dating the American actress, all eyes were on them. Unfortunately, Meghan was treated poorly by the British media. Harry, however, knew that something like that was on the way because both his late mother and his ex-girlfriends were judged down to the finest detail. In the Netflix documentary, Harry explained that he wasn’t certain if he would ever be able to find a love interest “capable” and “willing” to go through with it to live a royal life.
“Every relationship I had within a matter of weeks or months was splattered all over the newspapers, and that person’s family harassed, and their lives turned upside down,” Harry said.
“After one or two girlfriends, the third or fourth girlfriend would say, ‘Hand on a second. I don’t know if I want this.”
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Harry and Meghan, however, were able to overcome the obstacles. They married in 2018, and some two years later, they made the shocking decision to step down from their royal duties and leave Britain, probably for good. Ever since, they have been through thick and thin.
The two are much in love with each other and their lives seem picture-perfect. But in 2016, as revealed by Harry himself, he snapped at his then-girlfriend Meghan.
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“Maybe the wine went to my head. Maybe the weeks of battling the press had worn me down. For some reason, when the conversation took an unexpected turn, I became touchy,” Harry wrote.
“Then angry. Disproportionately, sloppily angry.”
Harry explained that Meghan took a comment he had made “the wrong way” because of the “cultural difference” between them. He then spoke to her “harshly” and “cruelly.”
“I was also just over-sensitive that night, I thought: ‘Why’s she having a go at me?’ I snapped at her, spoke to her harshly [and] cruelly,” he continued.
“As the words left my mouth, I could feel everything in the room come to a stop. The gravy stopped bubbling, the molecules of air stopped orbiting. Even Nina Simone seemed to pause.”
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Meghan seemed to be deeply hurt and left the room.
“She was calm, but said in a quiet, level tone that she would never stand for being spoken to like that. I nodded. She wanted to know where it came from,” Harry explained in his memoir. He then recalled Meghan saying, “‘Where did you ever hear a man speak like that to a woman? Did you overhear adults speak that way when you were growing up?’ I cleared my throat, looked away [and responded], ‘Yes.’”
She said she wouldn’t tolerate her partner speak to her in that manner, but at the same time, she knew that those words weren’t a result of their conversation, but of something else.
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“It came from somewhere deep inside, somewhere that needed to be excavated, and it was obvious that I could use some help with the job,” Harry explained.
“‘I’ve tried therapy,’ I told her. ‘Willy told me to go. Never found the right person.’ [It] didn’t work. ‘No,’ she said softly. ‘Try again.’”
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Everyone who has ever seen Top Gun, the 1986 legendary movie starring Tom Cruise, Tim Robbins, and Kelly McGillis among the rest, probably agrees that the cast was so iconic that it is hard to imagine other actors filing those roles. Sadly, the Top Gun: Maverick movie, which was released last year, showed that some could be completely excluded.
When the news of the sequel spread around, everyone assumed that actress Kelly McGillis would be part of it. Having been away from the spotlight for many years, many were looking forward to see her on the big screen one more time, but that’s not what happened.
Kelly McGillis, circ.1987 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Getty Images/Bob Riha, Jr.)
While Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer reunited in a very emotional scene, McGillis wasn’t asked to join the cast.
When asked by Entertainment Tonight back in 2019 if she was offered a role in the sequel, she said, “Oh my god no. They did not, nor do I think they would ever.”
The actress added: “I mean, I’m old and I’m fat, and I look age-appropriate for what my age is, and that is not what that whole scene is about.”
However, McGillis isn’t concerned she wasn’t part of the smash blockbuster movie. “I’d much rather feel absolutely secure in my skin and who and what I am at my age, as opposed to placing a value on all that other stuff,” she said.
Kelly McGillis sits at a desk in a scene from the film ‘Top Gun’, 1986. (Photo by Paramount/Getty Images)
When she landed the role of Charlie Blackwood, an astrophysicist and training school instructor, she made a lasting impression as Maverick’s, played by Tom Cruise, love interest. Her impeccable looks, long legs, and blonde hair made many fall for her.
“I don’t think anything prepared me for what I guess was becoming a household name kind of thing,” McGillis said told LA Times.
“It was really intimidating to me. I don’t aspire to be famous. I just aspire to be an actress, and that movie kind of startled my reality in a big way. I got very insecure. I didn’t know who I could trust to be my friend anymore.”
Landing this iconic role was a pure serendipity.
McGillis was scheduled to do another movie, but it fell through so Paramount called her and asked if she could do Top Gun instead. She liked the script and drove to San Diego for the production.
”I felt it was a Western in the sky. I had no clue how visually impeccable it would be. I think Tony Scott brought so much to that movie visually,” she said.
McGillis was compared to Grace Kelly, Ingrid Bergman and Lauren Bacall, but she never took those comparisons seriously.
”I have never thought of myself as a great beauty. In my teen-age and prepubescent years when one forms one’s ideas of oneself, I think primarily I was very over-weight and had a very low self-esteem,” she told Intelligencer Journal in 1986.
McGillis eventually left Hollywood in order to raise her two daughter which she has with now-former husband Fred Tillman. After tying the knot with him, the couple opened a restaurant in Key West, Florida, Kelly’s Caribbean Bar & Grill.
Speaking of her decision to turn her back to the place where dreams come true, Hollywood, McGillis once said, “I was never really unhappy. It is just that I wanted to reclaim my anonymity, to live my own life. I think that if you have children, it is you who should look after them. I didn’t want my kids to think of me as a movie star, I wanted them to know me as Mommy.”
Following her divorce from Tillman, McGillis came out as a lesbian. She said it wasn’t something that she decided to do overnight and revealed that she struggled with her sexuality since she was 12.
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“Life is a freaking journey, and it’s about growing and changing, and coming to terms with who and what you are, and loving who and what you are,” she once said.
In 2010, McGillis tied the knot with Melanie Leis. Their relationship seemed to be a destructive one, as they both turned to substances and went into rehab.
Tillman, McGillis’ ex-husband, attended the civil ceremony. “He was my greatest, bestest friend, and he still is,” McGillis told Daily News, adding: ”I was gay before I had kids. I had a really tough time coming to accept myself.”
Her relationship with her wife broke just a year later.
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Speaking of her appearance and the weight she has gained over the years, the actress said, “You hear women of my age talk about this all the time. I think this industry is not particularly kind to women who are over 50. I am not into the coloring of my hair, doing the Botox and getting a face lift, and I want to grow up to be a character actress.”
According to the Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski, McGillis being left out had nothing to do with her appearance, he simply wanted to add new characters and take the film to a different direction.
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Raquel Welch, the iconic 1960s sex symbol, died Wednesday aged 82 after a brief, undisclosed illness. The news of her passing has been confirmed by the family.
Gorgeous Welch attracted the attention of millions of people worldwide from the moment she landed her role in Fantastic Voyage and later in One Million Years B.C in 1966. No one really cared that her character only had three lines of dialogue in the film because it was her stunning appearance in her undergarments that stunned the audience.
“I had no other credentials as an actress outside of that one laughable line of dialogue: ‘Me Loana… You Tumak.’ It felt like I’d stumbled into a booby trap – pun intended. I’m a living proof that a picture speaks a thousand words,” Welch said.
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Soon after, images of her in the doe-skin bikini became best-selling posters that turned her into an international sex symbol. Playboy Magazine gave her the title of “the most desirable lady of the decade” in the year 1970 and she truly was one.
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Her roles, through which she portrayed strong female characters, helped break the mold of the traditional sex symbol and end Hollywood’s vigorous promotion of the blonde bombshell.
Throughout the years, Welch took part in many films and she even got her own television program called Raquel! Her healthy lifestyle and her passion for yoga resulted in her publishing a book with exercises.
Men’s Health named her second hottest woman of all time in their 2014 issue.
She also appeared on “The Cher Show” in 1975 and performed “I’m a Woman” with the singer.
Throughout her life, Welch was married four times. She married James Welch when she was just 18 but the two untied the knot in 1961 after which she moved to Texas with their two children. The brunette bombshell later married Patrick Curtis from 1967 to 1972; André Weinfeld from 1980 to 1990, and Richard Palmer from 1999 till their separation in 2003.
Welch is survived by her children, Damon, 63, and Tahnee, 61.
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Raquel Welch, you will always be remembered as one of the most stunning Hollywood beauties. Rest in peace.
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