Because of her father's military career, the family moved frequently during Grier's childhood. In 1956, they moved to Swindon in South West England, United Kingdom, where her father worked on an air force base.[8] By Grier's account, hers was one of the only black families in town, though she recalled that they faced no racism or segregation compared to that in the United States: "They didn't care that I was black since they hadn't been raised to hate blacks. Instead, they'd been raised to hate Germans... In the U.S., especially in the South, we were never able to get buses to stop for us, we couldn't eat in certain restaurants, couldn't use certain bathrooms. Up until 1969, there were department stores in which my father and I weren't even allowed to try on clothing."[8][9]
Grier moved to Los Angeles, California, in 1967, where she was initially hired to work the switchboard at American International Pictures (AIP).[12] She is believed to have been discovered by the director Jack Hill,[13] and was cast in Roger Cormanwomen-in-prison films such as The Big Doll House (1971), Women in Cages (1971) and The Big Bird Cage (1972). While under contract at AIP, she became a staple of early 1970s blaxploitation films, playing bold, assertive women, beginning with 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 is considered to be the first African-American woman to headline an action film, as protagonists of previous blaxploitation films were men. 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.[14]
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 1970s blaxploitation films. 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 appeared as a friend and colleague to Julia Roberts' college professor in 2011's Larry Crowne.
In 2010, Grier wrote her memoir, Foxy: My Life in Three Acts, with Andrea Cagan.[17]
Essence magazine wrote in 2012,"So revolutionary were the characters Grier played that women reportedly would stand on chairs and cheer".[19]
Grier founded the Pam Grier Community Garden and Education Center with the National Multicultural Western Heritage Museum. The purpose is to teach people about organic gardening, health, and nutrition among other things.[20] The museum named its first garden in honor of Grier in 2011.[21]
In January 2018, Grier said that a biopic based on her memoir is in the works, entitled Pam.[22]
In April 2022, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) announced the fourth season of their podcast, The Plot Thickens, would focus on Grier's life and career.[23]
Personal life
Grier met basketball player Ferdinand Lewis (Lew) Alcindor in 1969.[24] Early in their relationship, he converted to Islam and changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Abdul-Jabbar proposed to Grier on the condition that she immediately convert to Islam.[25] Grier refused, and he married a different woman that day.[26][27]
Grier met the comedian Freddie Prinze while promoting her film Coffy in 1973. They began a relationship and considered marriage.[26][27][28] Prinze wanted her to have his baby, but she was reluctant due to his history of depression and drug addiction.[17][29] They remained in touch after their break-up. She was one of the last people Prinze spoke to before he died in 1977.[22]
Grier met the comedian Richard Pryor through her relationship with Prinze; they began dating after they were both cast in 1977's Greased Lightning.[26] She helped Pryor learn to read and tried to extricate him from drug abuse.[22][17] After six months of sobriety, he relapsed.[26] In her memoir, Grier described how her sexual relationship with Pryor caused cocaine to enter her system. Grier confronted Pryor about protecting her health, but he refused to use a condom.[29] Pryor married Deborah McGuire while dating Grier in 1977.[30]
Grier was diagnosed with stage four cervical cancer in 1988, and was told she had 18 months to live. Through vigorous treatment, she recovered and has since been in remission.[34]
For her the culture-shaping effect of cultural contributions made throughout her career,[37] Pam Grier was recognized with a lifetime achievement award at the 2024 Toronto Black Film Festival.[38]
For Valentine's Day 2024, Quentin Tarentino paid homage to Pam Grier with the opening of a Los Feliz coffee shop carrying the namesake of the 1973 American-culture-shaping character famously portrayed by Grier for Coffy.[39]
2004: NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series – Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
2005: NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series – The L Word
2006: NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series – The L Word
2008: NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series – The L Word
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1 2 3 "Pam Grier (visual voices guide)". Behind The Voice Actors. Retrieved November 20, 2023. A green check mark indicates that a role has been confirmed using a screenshot (or collage of screenshots) of a title's list of voice actors and their respective characters found in its opening and/or closing credits and/or other reliable sources of information.
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, ISBN978-0-7864-2744-4.
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