Pamela Suzette Grier was born on May 26,1949 and is an American actress and singer.
38 Facts About Pam Grier
2.
Pam Grier's accolades include nominations for an Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Satellite Award and a Saturn Award.
3.
On television, Pam Grier portrayed Eleanor Winthrop in the Showtime comedy-drama series Linc's, Kate "Kit" Porter on the Showtime drama series The L Word, and Constance Terry in the ABC sitcom Bless This Mess.
4.
Pam Grier received praise for her work in the animated series Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child.
5.
Pam Grier was born on May 26,1949, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, the daughter of Gwendolyn Sylvia, a homemaker and nurse, and Clarence Ransom Pam Grier Jr.
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Pam Grier said she is of mixed ancestry, namely of African American, Hispanic, Chinese, Filipino, and Cheyenne heritage.
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Pam Grier was raised Catholic and later baptized as a Methodist.
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The family returned to the United States in 1958, when Pam Grier's father was transferred to California's Travis Air Force Base, eventually settling in Denver, Colorado, near Lowry Air Force Base.
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Pam 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.
10.
Pam 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.
11.
Pam Grier moved to Los Angeles, California, in 1967, where she was initially hired to work the switchboard at American International Pictures.
12.
Pam Grier 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, Women in Cages and The Big Bird Cage.
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Pam Grier is considered to be the first African-American female to headline an action film, as protagonists of previous blaxploitation films were men.
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Pam Grier 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.
15.
Pam Grier played similar characters in the AIP films Foxy Brown, Sheba, Baby, and Friday Foster.
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Pam Grier acquired progressively larger character roles in the 1980s, including a druggie prostitute in Fort Apache, The Bronx and a witch in Something Wicked this Way Comes.
17.
In 1985, Pam Grier made her theatrical debut in Sam Sheppard's Fool for Love at the Los Angeles Theatre Center.
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Pam Grier returned to film as Steven Seagal's detective partner in Above the Law.
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Pam Grier 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.
20.
Pam Grier had a recurring role in the TV series Crime Story between 1986 and 1988.
21.
In 1994, Pam Grier appeared in Snoop Dogg's video for "Doggy Dogg World".
22.
Pam Grier was nominated for numerous awards for her work in the Tarantino film.
23.
Pam Grier appeared on Showtime's The L Word, in which she played Kit Porter.
24.
In 2010 Pam Grier began appearing in a recurring role on the hit science-fiction series Smallville as the villain Amanda Waller, known as White Queen, head agent of Checkmate, a covert operations agency.
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Pam Grier appeared as a friend and colleague to Julia Roberts' college professor in 2011's Larry Crowne.
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In 2010, Pam Grier wrote her memoir, Foxy: My Life in Three Acts, with Andrea Cagan.
27.
Pam Grier received an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from the University of Maryland Eastern Shore in 2011.
28.
Pam Grier founded the Pam Grier Community Garden and Education Center with the National Multicultural Western Heritage Museum.
29.
In January 2018, Grier revealed a biopic based on her memoir is in the works, entitled Pam.
30.
Pam Grier met the basketball player Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor before he became a Muslim; soon after they began dating, he converted to Islam and changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
31.
Abdul-Jabbar proposed to Pam Grier, but gave her an ultimatum to convert to Islam.
32.
Pam Grier met the comedian Freddie Prinze while promoting her film Coffy in 1973.
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Pam Grier was one of the last people Prinze spoke to before he died in 1977.
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Pam Grier met the comedian Richard Pryor through her relationship with Prinze, but they did not begin dating until they were both cast in Greased Lightning.
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Pam Grier helped Pryor learn to read and tried to help him with his drug addiction.
36.
Pam Grier confronted Pryor about protecting her health, but he refused to use a condom.
37.
In 1998, Pam Grier was engaged to RCA Records executive Kevin Evans, but the engagement ended in 1999.
38.
Pam Grier was diagnosed with stage-four cervical cancer in 1988, and was told she had 18 months to live.