Pamela Suzette Grier (𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐧 May 26, 1949) is an American actress, singer, and martial artist. Described by Quentin Tarantino as cinema’s first female action star (although, many believe Cheng Pei-pei actually holds that distinction ), 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. Her accolades include nominations for an Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Satellite Award and a Saturn Award.

Grier came to prominence with her titular roles in the films 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). She portrayed the title character in Quentin Tarantino’s crime film Jackie Brown (1997), nearly three decades after her first starring role. Grier also appeared in Escape from L.A. (1996), Mars Attacks! (1996), Jawbreaker (1999), Holy Smoke!, (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 received praise for her work in the animated series Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child (1999).

IndieWire named Grier one of the best actors never to have received an Academy Award nomination.

Early life

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. Grier said she is of Black, Hispanic, Chinese, Filipino, and Cheyenne heritage. She was raised Catholic and later baptized as a Methodist.

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. 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.”

The family returned to the United States in 1958, when Grier’s father was transferred to California’s Travis Air Force Base, eventually settling in Denver, Colorado, near Lowry Air Force Base. Grier spent part of her upbringing on her maternal grandparents’ sugar beet farm in rural Wyoming, where their ancestors had homesteaded after fleeing west via the Underground Railroad to escape slavery. Grier attended East High School in Denver, and appeared in a number of stage productions, as well as participating in beauty contests to raise money for college tuition at Metropolitan State College.

Career

Grier in 1976

Grier moved to Los Angeles, California, in 1967, where she was initially hired to work the switchboard at American International Pictures (AIP). She is believed to have been discovered by the director Jack Hill, and was cast in Roger Corman women-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.

Grier played similar characters in the AIP films Foxy Brown (1974), Sheba, Baby and Friday Foster (both 1975). With the demise of blaxploitation later in the 1970s, Grier appeared in smaller roles for many years. She acquired progressively larger character roles in the 1980s, including a druggie prostitute in Fort Apache, The Bronx (1981) and a witch in Something Wicked this Way Comes (1983). In 1985, Grier made her theatrical debut in Sam Shepard’s Fool for Love at the Los Angeles Theatre Center.

Grier returned to film as Steven Seagal’s detective partner in Above the Law (1988). She had a recurring role on Miami Vice from 1985 to 1989, and made guest appearances on Martin, Night Court and The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. She had a recurring role in the TV series Crime Story, between 1986 and 1988. Her role in Rocket Gibraltar (1988) was cut due to fears by the film’s director, Daniel Petrie, of “repercussions from interracial love scenes”. She appeared on Sinbad, Preston Chronicles, The Cosby Show, The Wayans Brothers Show and Mad TV. In 1994, Grier appeared in Snoop Dogg’s video for “Doggy Dogg World”.

Grier with moderator Jarrett Crippen during a Q&A session at the 2013 Wizard World New York Experience

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.

Grier received an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from the University of Maryland Eastern Shore in 2011. That same year, she received an honorary Doctorate of Science from Langston University.

Essence magazine wrote in 2012,”So revolutionary were the characters Grier played that women reportedly would stand on chairs and cheer”.

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. The museum named its first garden in honor of Grier in 2011.

In January 2018, Grier said that a biopic based on her memoir is in the works, entitled Pam. 

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.

Personal life

Grier met basketball player Ferdinand Lewis (Lew) Alcindor in 1969. 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. Grier refused, and he married a different woman that day.

Grier met the comedian Freddie Prinze while promoting her film Coffy in 1973. They began a relationship and considered marriage. Prinze wanted her to have his 𝑏𝑎𝑏𝑦, but she was reluctant due to his history of depression and drug addiction. They remained in touch after their break-up. She was one of the last people Prinze spoke to before he died in 1977.

Grier met the comedian Richard Pryor through her relationship with Prinze; they began dating after they were both cast in 1977’s Greased Lightning. She helped Pryor learn to read and tried to extricate him from drug abuse. After six months of sobriety, he relapsed. 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. Pryor married Deborah McGuire while dating Grier in 1977.

Grier was formerly romantically linked to Jimmie “Big Wheel” Wheeler, a famous boxing promoter; Soul Train host Don Cornelius; and basketball player Wilt Chamberlain. In 1998, Grier was engaged to RCA Records executive Kevin Evans, but the engagement ended in 1999.

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.

Grier lives on a ranch in Colorado.

Although she is close with actor and Protestant minister Rosey Grier, she denies the rumor that they are related.

Honors and awards

For her the culture-shaping effect of cultural contributions made throughout her career, Grier was recognized with a lifetime achievement award at the 2024 Toronto Black Film Festival.

For Valentine’s Day 2024, Quentin Tarantino paid homage to Grier with the opening of a Los Feliz coffee shop, carrying the namesake of the 1973 American-culture-shaping character she famously portrayed in Coffy.