Credit: Justin Hoch
Sun 18 October 2026 0:15, UK
Raquel Welch is one of the rare legends of Hollywood who became famous as a movie star first, and then subsequently had to earn respect as an actor.
Although being in commercial successes like Fantastic Voyage and Bedazzled certainly helped her develop a strong reputation as a sex symbol, Welch proved that she was more than just a momentary fad when she stuck around in the industry throughout the turbulent 1960s and early ‘70s.
Getting to be an actor during the rise of New Hollywood was both an exciting and challenging ordeal. While on one hand, there were a number of new opportunities granted to actors that allowed them to take chances and do roles that they were legitimately passionate about, it also meant that some of the old-fashioned “studio programmers” were beginning to fade away because audiences did not have any interest in them anymore.
Welch was an interesting case because one of her most famous roles was as Constance Bonacieux in the 1973 adaptation of The Three Musketeers directed by Richard Lester. Although this was a story that had already been adapted many times, and the film felt like just another cash grab, Welch brought some life into one of the more underdeveloped characters in the novel and ended up winning a Golden Globe for her performance.
Welch had shown that she had the ability to elevate less ambitious projects like The Three Musketeers and turn them into something special, but she wasn’t able to recognise some opportunities that would have been riskier. She cited missing the chance to work with Martin Scorsese as one of her biggest regrets.
“I’ll tell you one that I think I really made a mistake about, and that was a movie called Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore,” Welch said. “It’s exactly what I should have done at that time, and it was like what I was looking for, too, and I just didn’t recognise it. You know how sometimes, what you have in life is right there and you don’t see it?”
Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore was a low-key family drama about a woman raising her son alone, and it was Scorsese’s first film after he broke through with his acclaimed gangster thriller Mean Streets. In addition to an impressive cast that included Diane Ladd, Jodie Foster, and Kris Kristofferson, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore memorably features an incredible performance by Ellen Burstyn, which won her the Academy Award for ‘Best Actress’.
Further reading: Cutting Room Floor
There had been a tremendous amount of pre-release buzz for Burstyn’s performance, as many Oscar pundits believed that she should have already won the ‘Best Actress’ trophy for her work the previous year in The Exorcist. Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore was nonetheless a complete transformation that embodied the type of intimate, thoughtful character dramas that were only possible in the New Hollywood era. Audiences still sought out spectacle, but they were just as interested in films that reflected what real life was like.
It’s not clear if Welch would have been able to commit to the role in the same way that Burstyn did, and if she would have won the Oscar had she been cast. Nonetheless, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore remains one of Scorsese’s most underrated films.
