Pam Grier went from being a secretary to the face of Blaxploitation. As a new BFI season celebrates her wild career, the Jackie Brown star says she has one more goal: playing a one-armed zombie
Pam Grier was at the cinema with friends in the early 1990s, watching a violent thriller by a hot young director, when she experienced a minor shock. The motor-mouthed crooks up on the screen were shooting the breeze; their conversation turned to Black female action stars of the 1970s. And suddenly there it was: the name “Pam Grier”, uttered admiringly by Tim Roth and Chris Penn.
“My friends were all standing up and screaming right there in the theatre,” she recalls. And what did she do? “I slid down into my seat. I couldn’t believe they were talking about me.”
