![]() 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. ![]() 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). Grier moved to Los Angeles, California, in 1967, where she was initially hired to work the switchboard at American International Pictures (AIP). 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. 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. 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. Up until 1969, there were department stores in which my father and I weren't even allowed to try on clothing." 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. Instead, they'd been raised to hate Germans. 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. In 1956, they moved to Swindon in South West England, United Kingdom, where her father worked on an air force base. īecause of her father's military career, the family moved frequently during Grier's childhood. She was raised Catholic and later baptized as a Methodist. Grier said she is of African American, Hispanic, Chinese, Italian, Filipino, and Cheyenne heritage. 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. IndieWire named Grier one of the best actors never to have received an Academy Award nomination. She received praise for her work in the animated series Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child (1999). ![]() 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 portrayed the title character in Tarantino's crime film Jackie Brown (1997), and also appeared in Escape from L.A. 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). Her accolades include nominations for an Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Satellite Award and a Saturn Award. ![]() Described by Quentin Tarantino as cinema's first female action star, 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. Pamela Suzette Grier (born May 26, 1949) is an American actress and singer.
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