She was a fabled but faded drama queen old enough to be my mother. I was no-one. Hollywood friendships are rarely equal but what rookie writer eschews friendship, however fleeting, with a movie icon?
It was the 90s and a chance encounter with Raquel Welch’s manager in Atlantic City led to her granting me an audience to promote her new fitness video.
She has just died aged 82 but that year she would turn 50. I arrived at her $10million home on Evelyn Place in Trousdale Estates, Beverly Hills. I found myself dealing with a real-life Norma Desmond: the over-the-hill silent screen idol played by Gloria Swanson in cult classic Sunset Boulevard. Self-absorbed to the point of obsession, Raquel would have been the perfect remake choice.
