Actress and international sex symbol Raquel Welch has died after a brief illness according to her manager.
Welch a two-time Golden Globe nominee, winning the musical/comedy motion picture award in 1975 for her performance in “The Three Musketeers,” which starred Faye Dunaway and Charlton Heston.
Welch rose to fame in the 1966 sci-fi movie “Fantastic Voyage” where she portrayed a medical team member that worked to save an injured diplomat’s life and was named one of the “100 Sexiest Stars in Film History” by Empire magazine in 1995. Despite her sex symbol status, she viewed herself differently and was not afraid to take chances and was an ally of the gay community.
In 1970 Welch starred in Myra Breckinridge based on Gore Vidal‘s 1968 novel of the same name. The movie the follows the exploits of Myra Breckinridge (née Myron), a transgender woman who has undergone a sex change operation. Claiming to be her own widow, she manipulates her uncle into giving her a position at his acting school, where she attempts to usurp Hollywood’s social order by introducing femdom into the curriculum.
The picture was controversial for its sexual explicitness, unlike the novel, received little to no critical praise and has been cited as one of the worst films ever made
Watch below as Raquel talks with Dick Cavett and Janis Joplin about Myra Breckinridge.
Burt Reynolds, the charismatic star of such films as Deliverance, The Longest Yard and Smokey and the Bandit and Cosmopolitan magazine’s first naked male centerfold who set out to have as much fun as possible on and off the screen — has died. He was 82.
Reynolds, who received an Oscar nomination when he portrayed porn director Jack Horner in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights (1997) and was the No. 1 box-office attraction for a five-year stretch starting in the late 1970s, died Thursday morning at Jupiter Medical Center in Florida, his manager, Erik Kritzer, told The Hollywood Reporter.
Reynolds had been battling health issues the past years. In 2013, the actor’s rep said he was in intensive care in a Florida hospital for treatment of flu symptoms, including dehydration.
Reynolds in his elder years blamed his limited mobility on doing his own stunts over the course of his career. Speaking on the Jonathan Ross Show on ITV, he said in 2015: “I did all my own stunts, which is why I can’t walk now.”
Reynolds appeared often on NBC’s The Tonight Show, and in 1972 he became the first non-comedian to sit in for Johnny Carson as guest host (Reynolds’ first guest that night was his ex-wife, Carne; they hadn’t spoken in six years, and she made a crack about his older girlfriend Shore). He and Carson once engaged in a wild and improvised whipped-cream fight during a taping, and he got to show a side of him the public never knew.
“Before I met Johnny, I’d played a bunch of angry guys in a series of forgettable action movies, and people didn’t know I had a sense of humor,” he wrote. “My appearances on The Tonight Show changed that. My public image went from a constipated actor who never took a chance to a cocky, wisecracking character.”
Reynolds shined in many action films and in such romantic comedies as Starting Over (1979) opposite Jill Clayburgh and Candice Bergen; The Best Little Whorehousein Texas (1982) with Dolly Parton; Best Friends (1982) with Goldie Hawn; and, quite aptly, The Man Who Loved Women (1983) with Julie Andrews.
Though beloved by audiences for his brand of good-ol’-boy fare, the Reynolds rarely was embraced by the critics. The first time he saw himself in Boogie Nights, he was so unhappy he fired his agent. (He went on to win a Golden Globe but lost out in the Oscar supporting actor race to Robin Williams for Good Will Hunting, a bitter disappointment for him.)
“I didn’t open myself to new writers or risky parts because I wasn’t interested in challenging myself as an actor. I was interested in having a good time,” Reynolds recalled in his 2015 memoir, But Enough About Me. “As a result, I missed a lot of opportunities to show I could play serious roles. By the time I finally woke up and tried to get it right, nobody would give me a chance.”
Despite the ups and downs of a Hollywood life, Reynolds seemed to have no regrets.
“I always wanted to experience everything and go down swinging,” he wrote in the final paragraph of his memoir. “Well, so far, so good. I know I’m old, but I feel young. And there’s one thing they can never take away: Nobody had more fun than I did.”
* Gerard Butler (admitted Bisexual) buffed up his tree trunk arms while shooting his new movie, Coriolanus in in Belgrade, Serbia. Coriolanus is actor Ralph Fiennes’ directorial debut (he also stars in the movie) with William Hurt, Eddie Marsan, Jessica Chastain and Vanessa Redgrave also star. Unfortunately Gerard WILL NOT be wearing small trunks and a cape.
* WOW, The Human Rights Campaign lunches an EDNA Facebook app!. 25+ Million a year in Donations and this is the best that they can do.
* David Duchovny wants to be on Team Jacob and Edward!: “If I were gay, you know. I think Woody Allen is one of a long list of men I might go gay for…Garry Shandling is someone I’ve publicly gone gay for, for jokes. Oh and anyone in the Twilight movies. I don’t know any of their names, but all of them. The wolves, the vampires? They’re all fantastic.”” I want to see the Duchovney/Lautner/Pattinson sex tape! Go David!
* Only 2 more years until we get to see Christian Bale’s bulge when the new Batman movie comes out!
* Imran Khan recently posed for a series of shirtless pictures and the results have his gay fans in India pushing to make him an icon. According to The Times of India, the production company producing his next film has made the following claim: “For three days now, we have been getting weird calls from various people who seem to have been so impressed by Imran’s shirtless pictures that they insist he’s the next gay icon. Some of them said he’s turning out to be the sex symbol they’ve been waiting for.” I’d do him.
