Pam Grier was born on this date in 1949. She is an African American actress.
Pamela Suzette Grier was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, the daughter of Gwendolyn Sylvia 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. 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 in Denver, Colorado she appeared in a number of stage productions, and participated in beauty contests to raise money for college tuition toward Metropolitan State College. She moved to Los Angeles, California in 1967, where she was initially hired as a receptionist at the American International Pictures (AIP) Company. Director Jack Hill discovered her. She was cast in 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 attractive, bold, assertive women, beginning with Coffy (1973). 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.
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 appeared in smaller roles until the 1980s. She played 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. She also appeared on Sinbad, Preston Chronicles, The Cosby Show, The Wayans Brother Show, and Mad TV. In 1994, Grier appeared in Snoop Dogg’s video for Doggy Dogg World. In the late 1990s Grier was a cast member of the Showtime series.
She again appeared in 1997 with the title role in Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown. 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). From 2000 to 2008 she dated marketing executive, Peter Hempel. In 2010 Grier began appearing in a recurring role on the science fiction series Smallville as the villain Amanda Waller. Also in 2010 she wrote her memoir, “Foxy: My Life in Three Acts” with Andrea Cagan.
In 1998 Grier was engaged to music executive Kevin Evans, but the engagement ended in 1999. From 2000 to 2008 she dated marketing executive Peter Hempel. She also dated basketball player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, comics Freddie Prinze, Richard Pryor, and Soul Train host, Don Cornelius.
She received her 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. She started the Pam Grier Community Garden and Education Center with the National Multicultural Western Heritage Museum. She lives in Colorado.
Written by Dianne Washington