Actor Raquel Welch’s cause of death includes revelation of Alzheimer’s diagnosis

LOS ANGELES — A cardiac arrest last month led to the immediate death of international icon Raquel Welch, who also suffered from Alzheimer’s disease for years.

The “One Million Years B.C.” and “Fantastic Voyage” actor’s cause of death was revealed Tuesday in her Los Angeles County death certificate, obtained and posted online by TMZ.

Welch died in mid-February at 82 after what her team described as “a brief illness.” The star had not publicly revealed that she had Alzheimer’s, the progressive brain disorder that affects memory, thought processing and behavior. The incurable disease was listed as a condition that also led to her death.

The bombshell TV, film and stage actor, whose career in the entertainment industry spanned 60 years, died at her Los Angeles home on Feb. 15 at 2:25 a.m. She was cremated six days later, the certificate said. The document lists California as Welch’s birthplace, though it has been widely reported that she was born in Chicago.

Welch began her career as a beauty queen in La Jolla and a single mom before she drew international acclaim as an actor whose smoldering looks fit the bill of the swinging 1960s. But, according to her Los Angeles Times obituary, Welch had a complicated relationship with her persona and was forever determined to prove that she was more than a sex symbol.

“As life goes on, you get more valuable as a person. Many women look better,” she told the L.A. Times in 2010. “Personally, I think I look better because I have lived and I have a different kind of aura about me having lived.”