Pam Grier

Pamela Suzette Grier, PhD (born May 26, 1949) is an American actress. She achieved fame for her starring roles in a string of 1970s action, blaxploitation, and women in prison films for American International Pictures and New World Pictures, most notably Coffy (1973) and Foxy Brown (1974). Her other major films during this period included The Big Doll House (1971), Women in Cages (1971), The Big Bird Cage (1972), Black Mama, White Mama (1973), Scream Blacula Scream (1973), The Arena (1974), Sheba, Baby (1975), Bucktown (1975), and Friday Foster (1975).

Described by Quentin Tarantino as cinema’s first female action star,[1] she starred as the titular character in Tarantino’s crime film Jackie Brown (1997), for which she received Golden Globe Award, Screen Actors Guild Award, Satellite Award, and Saturn Award nominations for Best Actress. Grier’s subsequent films included Jawbreaker (1999), Bones (2001), Just Wright (2010), Larry Crowne (2011), and Poms (2019).

On television, Grier portrayed Eleanor Winthrop in the Showtime comedy-drama series Linc’s (1998–2000), Kate “Kit” Porter on the Showtime drama series The L Word (2004–2009), and Constance Terry in the ABC sitcom Bless This Mess (2019–2020). She also received a Daytime Emmy Award nomination for her work in the animated series Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child (1999).

Grier was born on May 26, 1949, 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.[2] Grier has stated that she is of mixed ancestry, namely of African-American, Hispanic, Chinese, Filipino, and Cheyenne heritage.[3] She was raised Catholic and later baptized as a Methodist.[4]

Because of her father’s military career, the family moved frequently during her childhood to various places such as England before eventually settling 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 at Metropolitan State College. While in college, she was date raped.[