Raquel Welch On The Cross, 1966

Raquel Welch being crucified in an anachronistic publicity still for One Million Years B.C., directed by Don Chaffey, 1966. Rachel thought that this position also signified her celebrity status through which she was exposed to, and persecuted by, the press for being an early symbol of the Sex Revolution. Raquel was titled by Playboy magazine as the “Most Desired Woman of the 1970s.”

The late Raquel Welch left behind an incredible legacy as an actor, starring in countless cult classics, as well as winning a golden globe for her role in The Three Musketeers. However, there is one role and one outfit that perhaps defines her most.

Despite only having three lines in the film, Raquel Welch is arguably most famous for her role as Loana the Fair One in the 1966 Hammer film One Million Years B.C., and almost every obituary of an actor who had an exceptionally eclectic career starts by mentioning this film and her fur bikini.

The poster and accompanying pin-up photograph was taken by a unit photographer who to this day has not been identified despite becoming such a famous image. However, there was another publicity shot taken that was amongst the most controversial of Terry O’Neill prints, and was ultimately only seen over three decades later.

The photograph, known as Raquel Welch On The Cross, was an artistic and personal statement for both Raquel and Terry, made at the turning point of the 1960s when the old conservative ways were giving way to a sexual revolution that Raquel Welch would become one of the faces of.

Despite this, Ms Welch was shy and worried about being filmed in the fur bikini, worried that she might be crucified in the press for it. Mr O’Neill quickly asked 20th Century Fox to set up a crucifix, and he got to work taking several photographs from many different angles.

The picture is a metaphor for being trapped and strung up by the press, particularly at that time as they believed she only had the career she had because of her looks. Ultimately, Mr O’Neill, being raised Catholic, was worried that people would read the photograph not as the piece of feminist art it is seen as now but as blasphemous and did not publish the photos until much later.

“In 1966, I went to the filming of One Million Years B.C.” Terry O’Neill recalled. This was Hollywood, and in 1966 Hollywood has just reached the point when the censorship laws that had choked film making for about forty years had finally become a thing of this past. Naturally the filmmakers knew that a scantily clad Raquel Welch was going to draw all sort of attention. Raquel, as beautiful as she is, was still a bit shy about being filmed in her now infamous fur bikini. She told me she thought she’d be crucified by the press for it. And I thought, ‘That’s it!’

“I somehow got 20th Century Fox studios to set up a giant crucifix for me and I took a series of shots, in color and black and white, from different angles. They are beautiful shots but we both looked at them once the film was developed and we both got a little nervous. I was brought up Catholic and I did study to become a priest for a while. I feared people might think the wrong thing, so I decided not to publish the photos.”

(via Untitled Art)