Pam Grier

Pam Grier was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Because of her father's military career, her family moved frequently during her childhood to various places including England, and eventually settled in Denver, Colorado, 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 toward Metropolitan State College.

Grier moved to Los Angeles, California in 1969, where she was initially hired as a receptionist at the American International Pictures (AIP) Company. She was discovered by director Jack Hill, 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 was a box-office hit, and 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, film critic Roger Ebert noted that Grier was an actress of “beautiful face and astonishing form" and that she possessed a kind of "physical life" missing from other actresses. Grier subsequently played similar characters in the AIP films Foxy Brown (1974), Friday Foster and Sheba, Baby (both 1975).

She acquired progressively larger character roles in the 1980s, including a 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 made guest appearances on "Miami Vice," "Martin," "Night Court," "The Fresh Prince of Bel Air" and had a recurring role in the TV series "Crime Story" between 1986 and 1988. She also appeared on "Sinbad," "Preston Chronicles," "The Cosby Show," "The Wayans Brother Show" and "Mad TV." In 1994, Grier appeared in Snoop Dogg's video for "Doggy Dogg World."

As for theatrical performances, she appeared in Sam Shepard’s Fool for Love and won Best Actress in a Play 1984, NAACP Image Award. She went on to Best Awards for Frankie and Johnnie and the Claire De Lune and The Piano Lesson by August Wilson.

In the late 1990s Grier was a cast member of the Showtime series "Linc's." She starred in Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown, a film that overtly paid homage to her '70s Blaxploitation movies. In 1997 Grier was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actress and by the Screen Actors Guild for Best Actress in a Performance for Jackie Brown.

Between 2004-2009, Pam appeared in the Showtime series "The L Word" as Kit Porter and guest-stars as recurring characters in "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" and on the hit science fiction series "Smallville." She played character Deja’s great-grandmother this year in the NBC’s hit drama "This Is Us."

Recent films include Just Wright, Larry Crowne, Mafia with Ving Rhames and The Man with Iron Fists directed by RZA and Eli Roth. In 2010, she wrote her memoir, "Foxy: My Life in Three Acts" with Andrea Cagan, which became a New York Times Bestseller, won “Best Memoir of 2010” award from the African American Literary organization and received the Golda Meir Center for Political Leadership Award.

In 2011, Grier received her Doctorate Humane Letters from Maryland University Eastern Shore, an Honorary Doctorate of Science from Langston University, the Golda Meir Leadership Award and the Entertainment AIDS Alliance Visionary Award.

In collaboration with Subaru of America, Inc. and the National Multicultural Western Heritage Museum, she started the first Pam Grier Community Garden and Education Center in Dallas, Texas. In 2012, Grier received the Legend Award at the Essence Black Women in Hollywood Awards.

2018 is Grier’s ninth year serving as spokesperson for Dining Out for Life, an international fundraiser for HIV/AIDS service organizations.

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