Actor Raquel Welch passes away at 82

Images of Welch's memorable appearance in a fur-skinned bikini in 'B.C.' made her a bestselling pinup that transformed her into a global sex symbol

Raquel Welch, the US actress who became an international sex symbol after appearing in a deerskin bikini in One Million Years BC, died Wednesday, her manager said. She was 82.

Welch's manager said in an emailed statement to AFP that she had died peacefully early on Wednesday morning after "a brief illness," without providing further details.

The Golden Globe winner starred in more than 30 films -- including Fantastic Voyage and The Three Musketeers -- as well as some 50 television series in a career spanning five decades.

Welch, born Jo Raquel Tejada in 1940, grew up in California, and won several beauty titles in her teens.

She launched her acting career with a string of walk-on parts in minor films, including the 1964 musical feature Roustabout starring Elvis Presley.

Her break came when she was picked by the 20th Century Fox studio to star in the 1966 science fiction film Fantastic Voyage.

The same year she had a leading role in One Million Years BC, a fantasy film famous mainly for Welch's bikini-clad cavewoman.

While the film received mediocre reviews, Welch's image on its poster became part of cinema history.

She would later struggle to avoid being typecast, writing in her 2010 autobiography Beyond the Cleavage that "all else would be eclipsed by this bigger-than-life sex symbol."

She continued to act in major films, starring in Hollywood's first interracial sex scene with Jim Brown in 100 Rifles, and as a transgender heroine in the explicit Myra Breckinridge (1970).

She won the Golden Globe for best actress in a comedy or musical for The Three Musketeers (1973), in which she plays the queen's dressmaker.

While filming Cannery Row in 1982, Welch was fired for insisting on doing her hair and make-up at home. She sued MGM studios for breach of contract, ultimately winning a $15 million settlement.

A lover of yoga, Welch later launched herself into the business of wellbeing, publishing her Total Beauty and Fitness program in 1984.

Having long hidden her Latino origins, as an elegant 60-something she took on Hispanic roles in the American Family series on PBS in 2002 and Tortilla Soup in 2001.

In 2008 and aged 68 she divorced her fourth husband, Richard Palmer, who was 14 years her junior.

In later years, Welch continued to act occasionally, but also developed her own line of wigs, hairpieces and hair extensions.

She is survived by her son Damon Welch and her daughter Tahnee Welch.