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Pam Grier
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Pamela Suzette "Pam" Grier (born May 26, 1949) is an American actress. She came to fame in the early 1970s, after starring in a string of moderately successful women in prison films and blaxploitation B-movies such as 1974's Foxy Brown. Her career was revitalized in 1997 after her appearance in Quentin Tarantino's film Jackie Brown.
r was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, U.S., the daughter of Gwendolyn Sylvia (née Samuels), a homemaker and nurse, and Clarence Ransom Grier, who worked as a mechanic and Technical Sergeant in the United States Air Force.
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Encyclopedia
Pamela Suzette "Pam" Grier (born May 26, 1949) is an American actress. She came to fame in the early 1970s, after starring in a string of moderately successful women in prison films and blaxploitation B-movies such as 1974's Foxy Brown. Her career was revitalized in 1997 after her appearance in Quentin Tarantino's film Jackie Brown.
Biography
Early life
Grier was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, U.S., the daughter of Gwendolyn Sylvia (née Samuels), a homemaker and nurse, and Clarence Ransom Grier, who worked as a mechanic and Technical Sergeant in the United States Air Force. She has one sister and one brother, and is a cousin of football player Rosey Grier. 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, Colorado, where she attended East High School. While there she appeared in a number of stage productions, and participated in beauty contests to raise money for college tuition toward 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. She was discovered by director Roger Corman, who cast her in his women in prison films The Big Doll House (1971), The Big Bird Cage (1972), and the gladiator film The Arena (1973). While under contract at AIP, she became a staple of early
1970s blaxploitation movies, playing big, bold, assertive roles, beginning with 1973's Coffy, 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, and Grier was noted as the first African-American female to headline a film, as protagonists of previous blaxploitation films were all male. 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).
With the demise of blaxploitation, Grier's career went on hiatus for many years. 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, Night Court and The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and also had a recurring role in the TV series Crime Story between 1986 and 1988.
In the late 1990s Grier was a cast member of the Showtime series Linc's. She again appeared in 1997 with the title role in Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown, a film that partly paid homage to her '70s blaxploitation movies. , she appears in the cable television series The L Word as Kit Porter and occasionally guest-stars in such television series as Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (where she is a recurring character).
Personal life
Grier dated basketball player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar during the early 1970s and actor/comedian Richard Pryor in 1977. She was also romantically linked to actor/comedian Freddie Prinze in the 1970s. In 1998, she was engaged to music executive Kevin Evans, but the engagement was called off in 1999.
According to one of the many John Lennon biographies, she was at the famed Troubadour night club in Hollywood the night Lennon was ejected for drunkenly heckling The Smothers Brothers.
On the talk show VIBE, host Sinbad once claimed to have dated Grier's sister, though he had wanted to go out with Pam Grier.
Awards/nominations
- 2000, Best Actress: Bones (Nominated)
- 2000, Outstanding Performer in an Animated Program: Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Ever Child (Nominated)
- 1998, Best Actress in a Musical/Comedy: Jackie Brown (Nominated)
- 2006, Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series: The L Word (Nominated)
- 2005, Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series: The L Word (Nominated)
- 2004, Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series: Law & Order: SVU (Nominated)
- 2003, Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series: Law & Order: SVU (Nominated)
- 2002, Outstanding Actress in a Mini-Series/ Television Movie: 3 a.m. (Nominated)
- 2000, Outstanding Actress in a Comedy Series: Linc's (Nominated)
- 1999, Outstanding Actress in a Comedy Series: Linc's (Nominated)
- 1998, Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture: Jackie Brown (Nominated)
- 1998, Best Actress in a Musical/Comedy Motion Picture: Jackie Brown (Nominated)
- 1998, Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role: Jackie Brown (Nominated)
Filmography
Discography
External links
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