Pam Grier Bio

Pam Grier was born Pamela Suzette Grier on May 26, 1949 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She was born to Clarence Grier, an Air Force mechanic, and Gwendolyn Samuels, a nurse. When she was younger, her family moved around a lot - spending some time in England - before settling down in Denver, Colorado where Pam grew up. The family lived in a rough neighborhood there. Grier is of mixed heritage - African-American, Cheyenne Indian, Hispanic, Chinese, & Filipino. She has never been married and does not have any children.

Grier's film debut came in 1971 in the film Big Doll House as a prison inmate. Prior to that, she was in a couple beauty pageants, including the 1967 Colorado competition for Miss Universe where she placed third. Her breakthrough role came in 1973 in the film Coffy, as a nurse turned vigilante who goes after drug dealers when her sister becomes addicted. The film's slogan is "the baddest one-chick hit-squad that ever hit town". Later on, she starred in Foxy Brown as a high-class hooker seeking revenge after her boyfriend is murdered. Another notable film is 1975's Sheba Baby. During this part of the 1970s, Grier was a staple of the "blaxploitation" genre of films that highlighted the society ills that still were happening in black neighborhoods - drugs, violence, prostitution - well into the civil rights era and beyond. After the film genre was no longer popular, Grier had a low period in her career with few notable films.

During the 1980s, Grier was in Fort Apache, The Bronx (1981) with Paul Newman and Above the Law (1988) with Steven Seagal. She also had roles in the television shows Crime Story and Miami Vice. In 1988, she was diagnosed with cervical cancer, which she talks about in her 2010 memoir, Foxy: My Life in Three Acts (written with Andrea Cagan) and is currently in remission.

In the 1990s, Grier's career was in another low period without any standout roles. In 1996, she was in Tim Burton's Mars Attacks. Her career was revitalized in 1997 with the release of Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown, where she is an airline attendant who gets caught in the middle of drug and violence issues. She received a Golden Globe nomination for her performance. In the 2000s, she had roles in the television shows The L-Word and Smallville.

In 2010, Grier released her aforementioned memoir, in which she gave details about her personal life that had not been shared before. When she was young, she had two incidences of sexual assault which she had not discussed prior to writing the book. Grier's memoir also talks about her former paramours, which include Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Richard Pryor, and Freddie Prinze.

References:
Pam Grier - IMDb
Pam Grier - Biography.com
Pam Grier - New York Times

Photo Source:
Pam Grier - MSBush Wikispaces (Link from Google Image Search)