A red octagon symbolizes "stop" even without the word.

A symbol is something that represents an idea, a process, or a physical entity. The purpose of a symbol is to communicate meaning. For example, a red octagon may be a symbol for "STOP". On a map, a picture of a tent might represent a campsite. Numerals are symbols for numbers. Personal names are symbols representing individuals. A red rose symbolizes love and compassion.

In cartography, an organized collection of symbols forms a legend, or key.

∑

Etymology[link]

The word derives from the Greek symbolon meaning token or watchword. It is an amalgam of syn- "together" + bole "a throwing, a casting, the stroke of a missile, bolt, beam." The sense evolution in Greek is from "throwing things together" to "contrasting" to "comparing" to "token used in comparisons to determine if something is genuine." Hence, "outward sign" of something. The meaning "something which stands for something else" was first recorded 1590, in Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene.^[1]

Psychoanalysis and archetypes[link]

Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung, who studied archetypes, proposed an alternative definition of symbol, distinguishing it from the term sign. In Jung's view, a sign stands for something known, as a word stands for its referent. He contrasted this with symbol, which he used to stand for something that is unknown and that cannot be made clear or precise. An example of a symbol in this sense is Christ as a symbol of the archetype called self.^[2] For example, written languages are composed of a variety of different symbols that create words. Through these written words, humans communicate with each other. Kenneth Burke described Homo sapiens as a "symbol-using, symbol making, and symbol misusing animal" to indicate that a person creates symbols in her or his life as well as misuses them. One example he uses to indicate his meaning behind symbol misuse is the story of a man who, when told a particular food item was whale blubber, could barely keep from throwing it up. Later, his friend discovered it was actually just a dumpling. But the man's reaction was a direct consequence of the symbol of "blubber" representing something inedible in his mind. In addition, the symbol of "blubber" for the man was created by him through various kinds of learning. Burke emphasizes that humans gain this type of learning that helps us create symbols by seeing various print sources, our life experiences, and symbols about the past.

Burke goes on to describe symbols as also being derived from Sigmund Freud's work on condensation and displacement further stating that they are not just relevant to the theory of dreams, but also to "normal symbol systems". He says they are related through "substitution" where one word, phrase, or symbol is substituted for another in order to change the meaning. In other words, if a person does not understand a certain word or phrase, another person may substitute a synonym or symbol in order to get the meaning of the original word or phrase across. However, when faced with that new way of interpreting a specific symbol, a person may change their already formed ideas to incorporate the new information based on how the symbol is expressed to the person.

Jean Dalby Clift says that people not only add their own interpretations to symbols, they also create personal symbols that represent their own understanding of their lives: what she calls "core images" of the person. She argues that symbolic work with these personal symbols or core images can be as useful as working with dream symbols in psychoanalysis or counseling.^[3]

Paul Tillich[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

Paul Tillich argued that while signs are invented and forgotten, symbols are born and die. There are therefore dead and living symbols. A living symbol can reveal hidden levels of meaning, and transcendent or religious realities to an individual. For Tillich, a symbol always "points beyond itself" to something that is unquantifiable and mysterious. This is the symbol's "depth dimension". Symbols are complex and their meanings can evolve as the individual or culture evolves. When a symbol loses its meaning and power for an individual or culture, it becomes a dead symbol. The Greek Gods might be an example of dead symbols that were once living for the ancient Greeks but whose meaning and power is now gone.

When a symbol becomes identified with the deeper reality to which it refers, it becomes idolatrous as the "symbol is taken for reality." Here, the symbol itself is substituted for the deeper meaning it intends to convey. The unique nature of the symbol is that it gives access to deeper layers of reality which are otherwise inaccessible.

Role of context in symbolism[link]

This section may contain original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding references. Statements consisting only of original research may be removed. More details may be available on the talk page. (January 2010)

A symbol's meaning may be modified by various factors including popular usage, history, and contextual intent.

Historical meaning[link]

This history of a symbol is one of many factors in determining a particular symbol's apparent meaning. Consequently, symbols with emotive power carry problems analogous to false etymologies.

Context[link]

The context of a symbol may change its meaning. Similar five–pointed stars might signify a law enforcement officer or a member of the armed services, depending the uniform.

See also[link]

Notes[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Symbols

• symbols.com
• Symbols meanings for hundreds of symbols
• Symbolism Wiki
• Symbols & signs
• Ancient Symbolism
• Numericana

Raquel Welch
Welch in April 2010
Born	Jo Raquel Tejada (1940-09-05) September 5, 1940 (age 71) Chicago, Illinois, United States
Nationality	American
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1964–present
Spouse	James Welch (1959–1964) Patrick Curtis (1967–1972) Andre Weinfeld (1980–1990) Richard Palmer (1999–2008)

Jo Raquel Tejada (born September 5, 1940), better known as Raquel Welch, is an American actress, author and sex symbol. Welch came to attention as a "new-star" on the 20th Century-Fox lot in the mid-1960s. She posed iconically in an animal skin bikini for the British-release One Million Years B.C. (1966), for which she may be best known. She later starred in Bedazzled (1967), Bandolero! (1968), 100 Rifles (1969) and Myra Breckinridge (1970). Today, Welch is a noticeable face of television commercials for Foster Grant sunglasses and reading glasses.

Early life[link]

Welch was born Jo Raquel Tejada in Chicago, Illinois, the older sister to brother James and sister Gayle. She is the daughter of Josephine Sarah (née Hall; 1909–2000), of English ancestry, and Armando Carlos Tejada Urquizo (1911–1976), of Bolivian descent.^[1][2][3][4] Her father, an aeronautical engineer, emigrated from La Paz, Bolivia at age 17; her mother was American, the daughter of architect Emery Stanford Hall and wife Clara Louise Adams.^[5]

As a young girl, she wanted to be a performer. Her first love and ambition was ballet, which she studied from ages seven to seventeen. She gave up ballet after her instructor told her that she did not have the proper body.^[6] While a student at La Jolla High School in 1958, she won the Fairest of the Fair beauty pageant at the San Diego County Fair.^[7]

Career[link]

She changed her surname to that of her first husband, James Welch, in 1959. That year, she played the title role in The Ramona Pageant, a yearly outdoor play at Hemet, California which is based on the novel Ramona by Helen Hunt Jackson and Bob Biloe.

She reported the weather at KFMB, a local San Diego television station. Because of her heavy schedule at the time, she decided to leave her studies at San Diego State University (then known as San Diego State College). Her first marriage broke up and she moved with her two children, Damon and Latanne, to Dallas, Texas, where she modeled for Neiman Marcus and worked as a cocktail hostess, intending to move on to New York City from there.

Instead, Welch moved back to California, found a place in Los Angeles, California, and started making the rounds of the movie studios. She was cast in bit parts in two films and in the television shows Bewitched, McHale's Navy, and The Virginian, as well as on the weekly variety series The Hollywood Palace as a billboard girl and presenter of acts.

Welch's first featured role came in the beach film A Swingin' Summer, which led to a contract with 20th Century Fox. She was subsequently cast in a leading role in the sci-fi film Fantastic Voyage (1966), which was a hit and made her a star. She was the last star to be created under the studio system.^{[citation needed]}

Saturday night live in 1976.

On loan out to Hammer Studios in Britain, Welch starred in the remake of One Million Years B.C. striking an iconic pose in a prehistoric animal-skin bikini. She was described as "wearing mankind's first bikini" and the fur bikini was described as a "definitive look of the 1960s".^[8][9] One author said, "although she had only three lines in the film, her luscious figure in a fur bikini made her a star and the dream girl of millions of young moviegoers."^[10] Her publicity still for the film became a bestselling poster, and helped her be seen as one of the leading sex symbols of the 1960s and 1970s. After her appearance as lust incarnate in the hit Bedazzled, she returned to the U.S. and appeared in the Western film Bandolero!, with James Stewart and Dean Martin, which was followed by the private-eye drama Lady in Cement with Frank Sinatra. Her looks and fame led Playboy to dub her the "Most Desired Woman" of the 1970s. Welch presented at the Academy Award ceremony several times during the 1970s due to her popularity,^[11][12][13] and accepted the Best Supporting Actress Oscar on behalf of fellow actress Goldie Hawn when she couldn't be there to accept it.^[14]

Welch's most controversial role came in the notorious Myra Breckinridge. She took the part as the film's transsexual heroine in an attempt to be taken seriously as an actress, but the movie turned out to be a dismal failure.

Welch at the premiere of Bette Midler's movie, The Rose, 1979

Welch starred in the movie, 100 Rifles, a 1969 western directed by Tom Gries. The film also starred Jim Brown, Burt Reynolds, and Fernando Lamas. The original music score was composed by Jerry Goldsmith. 100 Rifles was one of the first films to feature an interracial sex scene between Jim Brown and Raquel Welch.

In 1970, Welch teamed up with Tom Jones and producer/choreographer David Winters of Winters-Rosen Productions^[15] for the TV special Raquel!, considered by some viewers to be a classic pairing together of 1970s pop-culture icons in their prime.^{[citation needed]} The multi million-dollar TV song-and-dance extravaganza was filmed around the world, from Paris to Mexico. The show featured lavish production numbers of classic songs from the era, extravagant costumes, and notable guest performances, including John Wayne and Bob Hope in the Wild West.

Welch at the 39th Emmy Awards - Governor's Ball - Sept. 1987

She then returned to film between the 1970s and 1980s: some of the films she did worked, like The Three Musketeers, and some like The Wild Party did not. The actress was due to star in an 1982 adaptation of John Steinbeck's Cannery Row, but was fired by the producers a few days into production (they claimed that the 40 year old was too old to play the character). She was replaced with Debra Winger. Welch successfully sued, collecting a $15 million settlement.^[16]

In addition to her TV special, Raquel!, her television appearances include the TV movies The Legend of Walks Far Woman and Right to Die in which she turned in a stirring performance as a woman stricken with Lou Gehrig's disease, and in the PBS series American Family, about a Mexican American family in East Los Angeles. She has appeared in the night-time soap opera Central Park West and made infomercials and exercise videos.

In 1987, she flirted with a pop singing career, releasing the dance single "This Girl's Back In Town." She has performed in a one-woman nightclub musical act in Las Vegas and has starred on Broadway in Woman of the Year, receiving praise for following Lauren Bacall in the title role, and in Victor/Victoria, having less success following Julie Andrews and Liza Minnelli in the title roles.

In a 1997 episode of the comedy series Seinfeld entitled The Summer of George, Welch played a highly temperamental version of herself, assaulting series characters Kramer and Elaine, the former because he fired her from an acting job and the latter because Welch mistakenly thought that Elaine was mocking her. She also appeared as a guest on the American TV series Sabrina the Teenage Witch, as Sabrina's flamboyant Aunt Vesta.

In 2001, she had a supporting role in the hit film Legally Blonde opposite Reese Witherspoon. She also appeared in Welcome to the Captain, which premiered on CBS television on February 4, 2008.

Achievements and awards[link]

In 1974, Welch won a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Actress in a Musical or Comedy for The Three Musketeers. She was also nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance in the TV drama Right to Die (1987).

Beauty and business career[link]

The Raquel Welch Total Beauty and Fitness Program was published in 1984. The book, written by Welch with photographs by André Weinfeld, includes a Hatha Yoga fitness program, her views on healthy living/nutrition, as well as beauty and personal style. As a businesswoman, Welch succeeded with her signature line of wigs. She also began a jewelry and skincare line, although neither of those ventures compared to the success of her wig collection HAIRuWEAR.^[17]

In January 2007, Welch was selected as the newest face of MAC Cosmetics Beauty Icon series. Her line features several limited edition makeup shades in glossy black and tiger print packaging.^[18] As of June 2010, she is featured in several television ads for sunglasses by Foster Grant.^[19]

Personal life[link]

Welch has been married to

• James Welch (1959–1964), publicist and agent; divorced
• Patrick Curtis (1967–1972), director and producer; divorced
• Andre Weinfeld (1980–1990), producer, director and journalist; divorced
• Richard Palmer (1999), from whom she is currently (as of 2012) separated.^[20]

Welch is the mother of Damon Welch (born November 6, 1959) and actress Tahnee Welch (born Latanne Rene Welch, December 26, 1961). Tahnee followed her mother's December 1979 example and appeared on the cover of Playboy in the November 1995 issue, as well as in a nude pictorial in that issue.^[21]

Filmography[link]

Television work[link]

Books[link]

• Raquel Welch: Raquel: Beyond the Cleavage, Publisher: Weinstein Books (March 29, 2010), ISBN 978-1-60286-097-1

See also[link]

	Latino and Hispanic American portal
	Biography portal

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Raquel Welch

• Raquel Welch at the Internet Movie Database
• Bob Hope 1967 show in Vietnam, Raquel Welch at 21:21
• Raquel Welch Cover Art Gallery