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Freeload: Joker's Sonar Mix + The Heavy, "How You Like Me Now" Remix

The FADER Magazine - Found Jun. 26, 2009
The last scene of Jackie Brown , when Pam Grier is driving around listening to music, looking completely zoned, over being melancholy tired or...

Posted on June 26, 2009, 5:30 am

Lion's Den Buoyed by Heroine's Nuanced Performance

Village Voice - Found Jul. 2, 2009
This bizarrely dreary milieu is unlike any other woman-behind-bars movie (Pam Grier completists might contest): Amid the hair-pulling tussles...

Posted on July 2, 2009, 1:33 pm

Freedom Fighters: American Legends Re-Imagined

Miami New Times - Found Jul. 1, 2009
Pam Grier?s Coffee and Richard Roundtree?s Shaft become revolutionaries such as Harriet Tubman, Nat Turner, and the Madam C.J. Walker.

Posted on July 1, 2009, 10:59 am

This Week In Beyonce: B Acts... Like What?

Houston Press - Found Jul. 1, 2009
... and worst) Austin Powers film, 2002's Goldmember, she tried desperately to reenact the allure of blaxploitation-era Pam Grier and failed.

Posted on July 1, 2009, 7:19 am

CINEMA, CELEBRITIES, CLASSES: American B...

EURweb - Found Jun. 30, 2009
From time to time, Pam Grier (and her favorable anatomy) came into his room, via the screen.

Posted on June 30, 2009, 9:10 am

Review | Third wheel undermines 'I Just Stopped By to See the Man'

Miami Herald - Found Jun. 26, 2009
... rough, but Douglas Grinn's shotgun shack set and Ann Payne-Nimmons' costumes (which make Alexander look like Pam Grier in Foxy Brown) are the...

Posted on June 26, 2009, 4:36 am

Cinema Dope: A Whopper of a Tale

Valley Advocate - Found Jun. 23, 2009
Ever Told), a 1968 comedy/horror B-movie from director Jack Hill, who went on to make the Pam Grier 'blaxploitation' flicks Coffy and Foxy...
Fast, Cheap and Out of Control - Hartford Advocate
Businesses challenged to compete to help food bank - AZCentral.com
Appetite swells for food films - Tennessean
Lunches, films to examine food systemMartha Stamps Catering is ... - Tennessean
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Tennessean

Posted on June 23, 2009, 8:34 am

A (brief) introduction to independent film movements

Examiner.com - Found Jun. 22, 2009
... blaxploitation films showing the rise and fall of the movement with interviews of people such as Pam Grier, Melvin Van Peebles, and Quentin...

Posted on June 22, 2009, 7:02 am

Blab Blab Blab: Segel and Rudd?H'wood's Cutest Couple?

EOnline.com - Found Jun. 15, 2009
Omari Grandberry','Oprah Winfrey','Orlando Bloom','Orlando Jones','Owen Wilson','Ozzy Osbourne','Pam Grier','Pamela Anderson','Paris Hilton...

Posted on June 15, 2009, 7:45 am

TV Movies for the week of June 14

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - Found Jun. 14, 2009
PG = Parental Guidance PG-13 = Not recommended for preteens R = Restricted audience CC = Closed captioned for hearing impaired ALPHABETICAL LISTING

Posted on June 14, 2009, 4:43 am

Pam Grier Biography

Pam Grier
extracted from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, distributed under the GNU Free Documentation License

Pam Grier
Born Pamela Suzette Grier
May 26, 1949 (1949-05-26) (age 60)
Winston-Salem, North Carolina, U.S.
Occupation Actress
Years active 1970–present

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 films such as 1974's Foxy Brown. Her career was revitalized in 1997 after her appearance in Quentin Tarantino's film Jackie Brown. She is one of a few African American actresses to have received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress. She has also been nominated for a SAG as well as a Satellite Award for her performance in the iconic film Jackie Brown. She received an Emmy Award nomination for her work in an Animated Program Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Ever Child. Rotten Tomatoes has ranked her as the second Greatest Female Heroine in film history.1

Contents

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.2 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 Jack Hill, who cast her in his women in prison films The Big Doll House (1971), and The Big Bird Cage (1972). While under contract at AIP, she became a staple of early 1970s blaxploitation movies, playing big, bold, assertive roles, beginning with Jack 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, 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.3 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, Martin, 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. As of 2004, 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,citation needed she was at the famed Troubadour night club in Hollywood the night Lennon was ejected for drunkenly heckling the Smothers Brothers.

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

Year Title Role Notes
1970 Beyond the Valley of the Dolls Partygoer
1971 Women in Cages Alabama
The Big Doll House Grear
1972 Hit Man Gozelda
Black Mama, White Mama Lee Daniels
The Big Bird Cage Blossom
Cool Breeze Mona
1973 The Arena Mamawi
Scream Blacula Scream Lisa
Coffy Coffy
The Twilight People Ayesa, the Panther Woman
1974 Foxy Brown Foxy Brown
1975 Friday Foster Friday Foster
Bucktown Aretha
Sheba, Baby Sheba Shayne
1976 Drum Regine
1977 Greased Lightning Mary Jones
1981 Fort Apache the Bronx Charlotte
1983 Something Wicked This Way Comes Dust Witch
Tough Enough Myra
1985 On the Edge Cora
Miami Vice Valerie Gordon
1987 The Allnighter Sgt. McLeesh
1988 Above the Law Delores 'Jacks' Jackson
1989 The Package Ruth Butler
1990 Class of 1999 Ms. Connors
1991 Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey Ms. Wardroe
1993 Posse Phoebe
1996 Mars Attacks! Louise Williams
Escape from L.A. Hershe Las Palmas
Original Gangstas Laurie Thompson
1997 Jackie Brown Jackie Brown
1999 Holy Smoke! Carol
In Too Deep Det. Angela Wilson
Jawbreaker Detective Vera Cruz
2000 Snow Day Tina
3 AM
Wilder Detective Della Wilder
2001 Ghosts of Mars Commander Helena Braddock
Law & Order
2002 The Adventures of Pluto Nash Flura Nash
2004 - 2009 The L Word Kate "Kit" Porter
2005 Back in the Day Mrs. Cooper
2008 Ladies of the House (TV movie) Birdie

Discography

References

External links