Raquel Welch Once Threatened Her Dad with a Fire Poker After He Threw Milk in Her Mom's Face: 'He Backed Down'

Mar. 15, 2025

Raquel Welch circa 1955 (left) and in 1992.Photo:Silver Screen Collection/Getty; Ralph Dominguez/MediaPunch via Getty

Silver Screen Collection/Getty; Ralph Dominguez/MediaPunch via Getty

Raquel Welchwas celebrated as one of the most beautiful stars in Hollywood, but on and off screen, she was so much more than her pretty face.

Raquel Welch in the 1969 film ‘100 Rifles’.20th Century Fox/Getty

20th Century Fox/Getty

Sadly, the star born Raquel Jo Tejado, the daughter of Bolivian aerospace engineer Carlos Armando Tejado and his wife, Josephine, grew up in a household where she was forced to develop both emotional and physical fortitude.

In a clip of an interview with Rona Barrett, Welch describes her parents as polar opposites. “I always thought my mother was almost an angel figure, a very gentle creature,” she says. “My father was extremely strict and rather tyrannical in a way….Forgive me, Daddy.”

Young Raquel and Carlos Armando Tejado had a complicated relationship. He refused to speak Spanish in the house when she was growing up because he didn’t want his children to have an accent. “There was a part of me that was missing,” Welch says of her Hispanic heritage in an audio clip in the documentary. “The part of me that was missing was the part of me that my father chose to just amputate out of our lives.”

Raquel Welch.Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty I

Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty I

Brian Eugenio, a cultural historian at Princeton University, says in the documentary, “It was a paradox that she adored her father, and she wanted to please her father deeply, but he was a taskmaster. He was hard.”

In another voiceover, Welch elaborates on her relationship with her father. “It was really conditional love,” she says. “I had to do something. I had to get perfect grades. I had to do everything perfectly.”

Raquel Welch and Richard Palmer in 1998.Ron Galella Collection via Getty

Welch’s ex-husband Richie Palmer, who appears throughout the documentary, offers a more explicit take on her father, choosing his words carefully. “I’m going to walk softly on this,” he says slowly. “She loved him, admired, respected, feared [this] terribly violent man.”

Luis I. Reyes, authorViva Hollywood, tells a story of an altercation Welch had with her father that ended up being a pivotal moment in their relationship. “When she was 16 years old, something happened at the dinner table,” he says. “Her father wasn’t happy, and he took a glass of milk and threw it in the face of Raquel’s mom.”

“And Raquel could not believe it — that he would humiliate her mother like that in front of everyone. And Raquel stood up to him. There was a fireplace, and she took a poker, and she threatened her father with the poker.”

Raquel Welch circa 1965.Archive Photos/Getty

Archive Photos/Getty

In an audio clip, Welch finishes the story: “I threatened his life, and he backed down. He backed away.”

“I heard stories about the poker,” Palmer says, tearing up. “He used the poker on her, too. Plain and simple: domestic violence. And nobody should have to go through that. It scarred her.”

It also made her stronger. “Because she stood up to him, he never did that again,” Reyes says. “That was a defining moment for her.”

I am Raquel Welchis now streaming on theCW website.

source: people.com