--- title: Happy Birthday, Raquel Welch: The Evolution of a Sex Symbol description: The actress, who turns 75 on Sept. 5, played a down and dirty queen of the roller rink the 1972 movie "Kansas City Bomber." canonical: https://time.com/4003570/raquel-welch-birthday-75/ author: Eliza Berman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-09-04T13:30:02.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:01:59.737Z og:title: Happy Birthday to an Icon: When Raquel Welch Was ‘The Hottest Thing on Wheels’ og:description: The actress, who turns 75 on Sept. 5, played a down and dirty queen of the roller rink the 1972 movie "Kansas City Bomber." og:url: https://time.com/4003570/raquel-welch-birthday-75/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt660bf0f0d6cc6974/69886014a988ca743e6b3f9e/150819-raquel-welch-09.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Raquel Welch 1972 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Happy Birthday to an Icon: When Raquel Welch Was ‘The Hottest Thing on Wheels’ twitter:description: The actress, who turns 75 on Sept. 5, played a down and dirty queen of the roller rink the 1972 movie "Kansas City Bomber." twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt660bf0f0d6cc6974/69886014a988ca743e6b3f9e/150819-raquel-welch-09.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Happy Birthday to an Icon: When Raquel Welch Was ‘The Hottest Thing on Wheels’  by [Eliza Berman](/author/eliza-berman/)  ## Eliza Berman Berman is a senior editor at TIME. Sep 4, 2015 1:30 PM CUT  Raquel Welch on the set of The Kansas City Bomber, 1972. Raquel Welch on the set of The Kansas City Bomber, 1972.Bill Eppridge—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  by [Eliza Berman](/author/eliza-berman/)  ## Eliza Berman Berman is a senior editor at TIME. Sep 4, 2015 1:30 PM CUT She may be best remembered for a revealing [deer-skin bikini](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Raquel%5FWelch%5Fin%5Fdeer-skin%5Fbikini.jpg "undefined"), but when LIFE Magazine profiled Raquel Welch in 1972, she donned roller skates instead. According to LIFE, the actress, who turns 75 on Sept. 5, was the “hottest thing on wheels,” throwing elbows and sustaining multiple injuries while filming the roller derby flick _Kansas City Bomber_. The film, in which Welch plays a hardened derby star and single mother to a young Jodi Foster, may not have been a critical success, but Welch still believes it had something important to say. In a 2012 interview with _GQ_, when the Film Society of Lincoln Center was celebrating her body of work, Welch [reflected](http://www.gq.com/story/raquel-welch-interview-sex-symbol-films-million-years-bc "undefined") on _Kansas City Bomber_’s depiction of gender relations in the early 1970s. “You have all those women out there, but the men in the front office are really running it,” she said of the roller derby world depicted in the film. “Which I thought was a really nice metaphor for the way a lot of women felt about their lives at that time.” Over the past decade, Welch has mostly stepped back from acting to focus on charity work and family time. She’s also cautioned against the superficiality of the sex symbol status she held, and the assumptions people tend to make. “I felt like people had me on a pedestal, and they didn’t know there was this other person,” she [told](http://member.aarp.org/entertainment/fashion-beauty/info-08-2011/raquel-welch-ageless-beauty.html "undefined") the AARP of that indelible bikini image, which was for the 1966 movie _One Million Years B.C._ “They saw the poster but they didn’t really know the story behind it.”  Raquel Welch on the June 2, 1972 cover of LIFE magazine. Bill Eppridge—LIFE Magazine _Liz Ronk, who edited this gallery, is the Photo Editor for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter_ [_@lizabethronk_](https://twitter.com/LizabethRonk "undefined")_._  Caption from LIFE. Raquel on skates as a derby demon. Bill Eppridge—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. After breaking her wrist in a skating mishap, Raquel wore a brace to protect her against further injury, but kept on skating. Bill Eppridge—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. She kept on skating, but for dangerous scenes, a stand-in replaced her. Bill Eppridge—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. "You're a big, fat, tub of lard, and you can't skate any better than you look," shouts Raquel at her rival, " 'Big Bertha' Bogliani," played by Patty (Moo-Moo) Cavin, a 250-lb star of the real life Northern Hawks. Bill Eppridge—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. 'Kansas City isn't big enough for both of us.' Bill Eppridge—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. Sitting on the sidelines, Raquel studied pro skaters. After weeks of rough-and-tumble, Raquel nurses one last with: "Right now, before this picture is over, I want to belt someone. I want to get one good lick in." Bill Eppridge—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Raquel Welch on the set of The Kansas City Bomber, 1972. Bill Eppridge—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Raquel Welch on the set of The Kansas City Bomber, 1972. Bill Eppridge—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Raquel Welch on the set of The Kansas City Bomber, 1972. Bill Eppridge—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Raquel Welch on the set of The Kansas City Bomber, 1972. Bill Eppridge—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Raquel Welch on the set of The Kansas City Bomber, 1972. Bill Eppridge—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Raquel Welch on the set of The Kansas City Bomber, 1972. Bill Eppridge—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Raquel Welch on the set of The Kansas City Bomber, 1972. 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