Local man was seduced by the late great Raquel Welch - and he turned her down!

HER legion of fans were saddened this week to learn of the passing of movie icon Raquel Welch.

The 82-year-old was a gifted actress, but her prowess was often over-shadowed by her rare beauty.

But one local man who worked alongside her proved to be immune to her considerable charms.

A star in his own right, Stephen Boyd was born to humble beginnings on the Doagh Road in 1931.

He was the youngest of nine children, and he was still a lad when the family upped sticks and moved to Glengormley.

Boyd attended Glengormley and Ballyrobert Primary, before hitting the books at Ballyclare High School until the age of fourteen.

Taking on odd jobs, whilst balancing book keeping studies, Boyd harboured a desire for the stage, soon branching into the Ulster Group Theatre.

His first ‘break’ came through an unlikely role as a gravel-throated policeman on Ulster Radio's popular show, ‘The McCooey’s’. He proved to be quite the voice actor, and slowly began playing more characters within the programme.

In 1956, he treaded the boards as the iconic Stanley in A Streetcar Named Desire, a role he declared ‘the best performance I ever gave in my life’.

Moving to London, however, granted the little fish a massive pond of even more opportunity. After a fortuitous employment by Leicester Square Cinema to usher in attendees during the British Academy Awards, Boyd was noticed by Sir Michael Redgrave, who introduced him to the head director of the Windsor Repertory Group.

Film work soon beckoned, including early roles with Michael Caine and Robert Shaw.

Spring 1957 saw Boyd staring in his biggest role to date, in World War II romance ‘Seven Thunders’. Around the same time, Stephen was selected by leading lady - the world renowned screen siren Brigitte Bardot - as her leading man for ‘The Night Heaven Fell’.

Whispers that the pair were enjoying a steamy affair would later inspire Bardot’s husband to file for a divorce. Both, however, denied the charge!

Then, lightning struck - when the local lad landed a career defining role in ‘Ben-Hur’.

He later revealed that he was instructed to play the role of Messala with ‘undercurrents of homosexuality’ to increase the tensions between the two lead antagonists, which led to several amiable quarrels between him and director William Wyler.

Nevertheless, Messala proved to become quite the sex symbol. Press columnist Erskine Johnson wrote, ‘A brass hat and the armor of a Roman warrior in Ben-Hur does for Stephen Boyd what a tight dress does for Marilyn Monroe’.

In 1960 he won the Golden Globe Award For Best Supporting Actor.

More big roles followed, but one of his biggest roles came in 1966 - ironically as the leader of a submarine crew who are shrunk to microscopic size to venture into the body of an injured scientist to repair damage to his brain.

‘Fantastic Voyage’ also set him on a collision course with a certain Raquel Welch - and he made quite the impression on her.

Raquel may have shred the screen with Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, but she later admitted that it was the man from County Antrim who made her go ‘weak at the knees’..

In her memoir ‘Beyond The Cleavage’, Welch said that it was his ‘soft Irish brogue’ that first caught her attention.

“He had an ironic way of looking at things and a witty charm about him,” she said.

She was clearly interested, but Boyd rejected her advances.

At a New York film retrospective in 2011, Welch revealed Boyd had turned her down one night in New York, when she had asked him to go for a drink as they were staying in the same hotel.

“He was so hot with his cleft chin and he was so not interested in me. I tried to seduce him one time,” she said.

“I was so smitten with him and I was so excited every time I would come on the set I would see Stephen, and think, ‘Oh God, he’s so cute’.

“I said to him as we were going up in the lift, ‘So Stephen, would you like to come in for a drink?’

“We got out of the lift and he walked me to my room and he said, ‘I’d like to tell you a little story that was told to me by John Gielgud when I was working with the National Theatre. You’ll have to think about it for a moment but I hope you get my drift: An actress is a little bit more than a woman, but an actor is a little bit less than a man’.

“I thought, ‘Oh! He’s not interested in me; I am the wrong sex!’”

The local man went on to marry secretary Elizabeth Mills, who was his partner until his death in 1977.

But in an interview before his untimely passing, he revealed that the admiration was indeed mutual.

“When I was making Fantastic Voyage it was one of her first major films and she didn’t want to be exploited too much so she stood up for herself,” he said.

“And I like it when people stand up for themselves.

“She’s one of the most beautiful women in the world and because of that much of her talent will forever go unnoticed.”