Pam Grier
Pam Grier | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Grier at a reception for "An Evening with Pam Grier" at the Canadian Film Centre in 2012. | |
| Born | Pamela Suzette Grier May 26, 1949 |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | East High School Metropolitan State College |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1970–present |
| Known for | Coffy Coffin in Coffy – 1973 Foxy Brown in Foxy Brown – 1974 Sheba Shayne in Sheba Baby – 1975 Friday Foster in Friday Foster – 1975 Jackie Brown in Jackie Brown – 1997 |
| Partner(s) | Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (1970–73) Richard Pryor (1975–78) Kevin Evans (1997–99) |
| Awards | San Diego Film Critics Society Award for Best Actress – Jackie Brown |
Pamela Suzette "Pam" Grier (born May 26, 1949) is an American actress. She became famous in the early 1970s after starring in a string of moderately successful women in prison and blaxploitation films like The Big Bird Cage (1972), Coffy (1973), Foxy Brown (1974) and Sheba Baby (1975). She starred in Quentin Tarantino's film Jackie Brown, for which she received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress. She has also been nominated for a SAG Award as well as a Satellite Award for her performance in Jackie Brown. Grier is also known for her work on television, for 6 seasons she portrayed Kate 'Kit' Porter on the television series The L Word. She received an Emmy Award nomination for her work in the animated program Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child. Rotten Tomatoes has ranked her as the second greatest female action heroine in film history.[1] Director Quentin Tarantino remarked that she may have been cinema's first female action star.[2]
Early life
Pam Grier was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, the daughter of Gwendolyn Sylvia (née Samuels), a homemaker and nurse, and Clarence Ransom Grier, Jr., who worked as a mechanic and Technical Sergeant in the United States Air Force. She has one sister and one brother.[3] Grier has stated that she is of mixed ancestry consisting of African-American, Hispanic, Chinese, Filipino and Cheyenne Indian heritage.[4]
At age 6, Grier was raped by two boys when she was left unattended at her aunt's house. "It took so long to deal with the pain of that," she says, "You try to deal with it, but you never really get over it," she adds. "And not just me; my family endured so much guilt and anger that something like that happened to me."[4]
Because of her father's military career, her family moved frequently during her childhood, to various places such as England, and eventually settled in Denver, where she attended East High School. While in Denver she appeared in a number of stage productions, and participated in beauty contests to raise money for college tuition at Metropolitan State College.
Career
Grier moved to Los Angeles, California, in 1967, where she was initially hired as a receptionist at the American International Pictures (AIP) company.[citation needed] It is believed that she was discovered by director Jack Hill,[citation needed] who cast her in his women in prison films The Big Doll House (1971) and The Big Bird Cage (1972).
While under contract at AIP, she became a staple of early 1970s blaxploitation movies, playing big, bold, assertive women, beginning with Jack Hill's Coffy (1973), in which she plays a nurse who seeks revenge on drug dealers. Her character was advertised in the trailer as the "baddest one-chick hit-squad that ever hit town!" The film, which was filled with sexual and violent elements typical of the genre, was a box-office hit. Grier was noted as the first African-American female to headline an action film, as protagonists of previous blaxploitation films were males. In his review of Coffy, critic Roger Ebert praised the film for its believable female lead. He noted that Grier was an actress of "beautiful face and astonishing form" and that she possessed a kind of "physical life" missing from many other attractive actresses.[5] Grier subsequently played similar characters in the AIP films Foxy Brown (1974), Sheba, Baby and Friday Foster, (both 1975).
With the demise of blaxploitation later in the 1970s, Grier appeared in smaller roles for many years. She acquired progressively larger character roles in the 1980s, including a druggie prostitute in Fort Apache, The Bronx (1981), a witch in Something Wicked this Way Comes (1983), and Steven Seagal's detective partner in Above the Law (1988). She had a recurring role on Miami Vice from 1985 to 1989 and made guest appearances on Martin, Night Court and The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. She had a recurring role in the TV series Crime Story between 1986 and 1988. Her role in Rocket Gibraltar (1988) was cut due to fears by the film's director, Daniel Petrie, of "repercussions from interracial love scenes".[6] She appeared on Sinbad, Preston Chronicles, The Cosby Show, The Wayans Brothers Show, and Mad TV. In 1994, Grier appeared in Snoop Dogg's video for "Doggy Dogg World".
In the late 1990s, Grier was a cast member of the Showtime series Linc's. She appeared in 1996 in John Carpenter's Escape from L.A. and 1997 with the title role in Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown, films that partly paid homage to her '70s blaxploitation movies. She was nominated for numerous awards for her work in the Tarantino film. Grier appeared on Showtime's The L Word, in which she played Kit Porter. The series ran for six seasons and ended in March 2009. Grier occasionally guest-stars in such television series as Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (where she is a recurring character).
In 2010, Grier began appearing in a recurring role on the hit science fiction series Smallville as the villain Amanda Waller, also known as White Queen, head agent of Checkmate, a covert operations agency. She recently appeared as a friend and colleague to Julia Roberts' college professor in Larry Crowne.
In 2010, Grier wrote her memoir, Foxy: My Life in Three Acts, with Andrea Cagan.[7]
Personal life
In 1998 Grier was engaged to music executive Kevin Evans, but the engagement ended in 1999. From 2000 to 2008 she dated marketing executive Peter Hempel.[citation needed]. She also dated basketball player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, comics Freddie Prinze, Richard Pryor, and Soul Train host, Don Cornelius. She also had a brief relationship with basketball great Wilt Chamberlain.
She received her Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from the University of Maryland Eastern Shore in 2011. That same year, she received an Honorary Doctorate of Science from Langston University.[citation needed] She started the Pam Grier Community Garden and Education Center with the National Multicultural Western Heritage Museum.[citation needed]. She lives in Colorado.
Filmography
Discography
- "Long Time Woman" (1971, from the film The Big Doll House)
- "Communication" by Bobby Womack (1971, backing vocals)
- "Understanding" by Bobby Womack (1972, backing vocals)
References
- ^ "Total Recall: The 25 Best Action Heroines of All Time". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2011-08-07.
- ^ "Pam Grier". Wizard World. Retrieved 2015-06-29.
- ^ Mal Vincent (January 6, 1998). "She's Back, And She's Ready To Kick Butt. Pam Grier Is Baaaaaad, And Lord Help The Man Who Doesn'T Take Notice". The Virginian-Pilot Archives. Norfolk, VA. Retrieved October 5, 2013.
- ^ a b John Petkovic, The Plain Dealer (2010-09-18). "Pam Grier, queen of 1970s blaxploitation films, speaks in Cleveland on her book tour". cleveland.com. Retrieved 2013-09-15.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|deadurl=ignored (|url-status=suggested) (help) - ^ "RogerEbert.com". Coffy. Retrieved May 11, 2006.
- ^ "JerryattheMovies". Foxy Brown and Elmer Gantry? Nay, nay. Retrieved March 15, 2012.
- ^ Lee, Felicia R. (May 4, 2010). "Pam Grier's Collection of Lessons Learned". The New York Times.
Further reading
- Sims, Yvonne D. (2006), "Here comes the queen", in Sims, Yvonne D. (ed.), Women of blaxploitation: how the black action film heroine changed American popular culture, Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc. Publishers, pp. 71–92, ISBN 9780786427444.
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External links
- 1949 births
- Living people
- 20th-century American actresses
- 21st-century American actresses
- Actresses from Los Angeles
- Actresses from North Carolina
- African-American actresses
- American actresses of Chinese descent
- American people of Cheyenne descent
- American actresses of Filipino descent
- American stage actresses
- American television actresses
- Breast cancer survivors
- Hispanic and Latino American actresses
- Military brats
- American karateka
- Female karateka
- American wushu practitioners
- American aikidoka
- American jujutsuka
- American t'ai chi ch'uan practitioners
- People from Winston-Salem, North Carolina
- People from Denver