Film Society at Lincoln Center: Q&A With Raquel Welch on Myra Breckinridge

Source:Film At Lincoln Center- Simon Doonan, interviewing Hollywood Goddess Raquel Welch, at Lincoln Center in 2012.

“Cinematic goddess Raquel Welch sat down with author and fashion commentator Simon Doonan for a Q&A before a screening of cult classic “Myra Breckinridge” (1970) as part of a Film Society of Lincoln Center retrospective of her films. Camp, sexuality, and Mae West were all covered, obviously.”

From Film Society at Lincoln Center

Myra Breckinridge is not the movie that made Raquel Welch a star. Myra Breckinridge was a loser at the box office no matter how funny it was. It was one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen.

Myra might have been an official loser but Raquel was great and hilarious in it and it was in several ways a great movie. Just imagine going back to 1969-70 the end of the 1960s and the start of the 1970s. Yes, the cultural and sexual revolutions were already under way. The gay rights movement was already under way as well.

But take that a few steps forward where you have a formerly open gay man who decides that even living the life of a queen gay man, wasn’t good enough for him and decides to take it a step forward and become a transgender woman. The word transgender might not have even around yet in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

I’ve argued before that Myra Breckinridge both the book and the movie, were at least twenty years ahead of their time. Which I believe is why it was a loser at the box office. But that move comes out in the 1990s with the same cast, writing, and everything else, and I believe we’re talking about one of the most celebrated comedies of all-time.

Myra wasn’t seen as a great comedy then, but seeing it today it certainly looks like a very funny entertaining movie. And Raquel Welch was great and hilarious in it. As well as gorgeous, adorable, sexy, like she always has been. 

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