Pam Grier

Pam Grier
Grier at a reception for "An Evening with Pam Grier" at the Canadian Film Centre in 2012.
Born	Pamela Suzette Grier (1949-05-26) May 26, 1949 (age 67) Winston-Salem, North Carolina, U.S.
Nationality	American
Education	East High School Metropolitan State College
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1970–present
Known for	Coffy Coffin in Coffy – 1973 Foxy Brown in Foxy Brown – 1974 Sheba Shayne in Sheba Baby – 1975 Friday Foster in Friday Foster – 1975 Jackie Brown in Jackie Brown – 1997
Partner(s)	Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (1970–73) Richard Pryor (1975–78) Kevin Evans (1997–99)
Awards	San Diego Film Critics Society Award for Best Actress – Jackie Brown

Pamela Suzette "Pam" Grier (born May 26, 1949) is an American actress. She became known in the early 1970s for starring in a string of moderately successful women in prison and blaxploitation films like The Big Bird Cage (1972), Coffy (1973), Foxy Brown (1974) and Sheba Baby (1975). She starred in Quentin Tarantino's film Jackie Brown, for which she received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress. She has also been nominated for a SAG Award as well as a Satellite Award for her performance in Jackie Brown. Grier is also known for her work on television, for 6 seasons she portrayed Kate 'Kit' Porter on the television series The L Word. She received an Emmy Award nomination for her work in the animated program Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child. Rotten Tomatoes has ranked her as the second greatest female action heroine in film history. Director Quentin Tarantino remarked that she may have been cinema's first female action star.

Pam Grier was born 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 has stated that she is of mixed ancestry consisting of African-American, Hispanic, Chinese, Filipino and Cheyenne Indian heritage.