GARDENA, Calif. — More than 460 lots from the personal collection of actress Raquel Welch come to market on Friday, April 12 at Julien’s Auctions. Titled Bombshell: Raquel Welch, the sale is now available for review and bidding at LiveAuctioneers.
Welch (1940-2023) was a multi-talented artist – actress, singer, dancer, artist, and much more. Best remembered for her dazzlingly good looks and figure, she broke through in 1966’s Fantastic Voyage, a science fiction thriller about miniaturizing a submarine and injecting it into a medical patient so that its crew can perform brain surgery. Her turn in Hammer Films’ 1966 release One Million Years BC, in which she wore only a doe-skin bikini turned her into an international sex star.
The sale includes everything from her 2017 Mercedes-Benz SL 550 roadster to her 1975 Best Actress Golden Globe award for her role in the 1973 film The Three Musketeers.
But it is her personal wardrobe that is attracting all the attention. The choices are led by a Bob Mackie beaded dress worn by Welch on several occasions: as part of her mid-1970s stage show; on the cover of L’Express magazine; in an episode of Saturday Night Live that she hosted on April 24, 1976; for a 1978 television appearance opposite Bob Hope during which the two sang the Bee Gees hit Stayin’ Alive; and in a 1978 appearance on The Muppet Show. Mackie’s design of the halter-neck dress is embellished with gold-tone, silver-tone, copper-tone, and dark brown sequins and rhinestones, with sheer chiffon cutouts in the front and a flame hem.
Interestingly, the dress and its appearance on The Muppet Show inspired Ryan Gosling to become an actor. Julien’s notes recount his memory. “I was a lonely child, I didn’t do well at school, and TV was my only friend. Then, one day, I saw Raquel Welch on The Muppet Show … She was the first crush I ever had, and I thought, ‘How do I get to meet this woman?’ And then I thought, ‘Well, she’s on TV, so to meet her I have to get on TV myself.”
The dress is estimated at $2,000-$3,000, though with the market for stage- and screen-worn historic costumes skyrocketing, those numbers are probably exceedingly conservative.
