Thursday, August 03, 2006
Geek Pin-Up #7: Pam Grier
She's the bodacious stack of chocolate dynamite that blew up the screen in drive-ins and urban hardtops throughout the 70's, and she's still going strong today. From the moment she appeared in Jack Hill's women's prison classic The Big Doll House, smacking down fellow prisoners, improvising the classic rejoinder "That's Miss N**** to you," and even belting out the soulful theme song "Long Time Woman," she's made an indeliable mark on American Cinema.
Her partnership with director Jack Hill was a fruitful one throughout the 70's. Most notably, in Coffy, she blazed a bloody trail of vengeance across the silver screen, blowing heads off with a sawed-off, delivering deadly doses of dangerous drugs, and spiking her afro with razorblades. In the follow-up, Foxy Brown, and in similar films through the decade, she continued to kick ass on anyone foolish enough to cross her.
And look at that body, that masterpiece of God's architecture, that improbable anthology of curves! How slight todays thin, demure starlets seem when placed next to this grindhouse goddess!
Years of working in B-movies paid off in 1997, when Quentin Tarantino brought her into the mainstream with her starring role in Jackie Brown, rescuing her from a future of small, thankless roles in movies like Mars Attacks! and Escape from L.A.. Not only did she give a remarkably complete performance, but she looked almost as good pushing 50 as she did as an up-and-comer. She continues to do strong work, most notably as an alchoholic soul singer on The L Word, and will no doubt continue to grow as an actor, although deep down, we'll always think of her with a gun in her hand and a wah-wah pedal on the soundtrack.
Click on the image for a bigger, slightly-NSFW image.
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Nice TFL's!