“I had made another movie which was a big step up for me (Fantastic Voyage),” she said during an interview with the Sunday Post in 2018. That “should have been released before One Million Years B.C., but the special effects delayed it, so I was the dinosaur lady first and the science lady second,” Welch said.

Welch only had 3 lines in her iconic performance as a cave girl in One Million Years B.C., but not many people remember them.

Instead, her fur bikini became became iconic – a real pop culture symbol.

“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.

During the ’70s, Welch appeared in several movies and she also got her own television program called Raquel!, featuring song and dance numbers and guest appearances by Bob Hope, John Wayne, and Tom Jones.

In the 1980s, she published a book and videos on exercise and yoga.

She also launched a successful series of wigs.

But the image of her as a gorgeous bombshell became the most enduring image of Welch.