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->''"Pam Grier was white America's first opportunity to get an eyeful of a really fine black woman without having to listen to her sing, thus empowering millions of us to ignore Music/DestinysChild. If you don't appreciate the importance of that I guess you weren't around back in the Lena Horne Era. You never heard Pam Grier wail about no 'Stormy Weather'. If it was raining outside that meant it was time for Pam to put on her baddest pair of rainboots and go out there and kick that weatherman's white ass."''
-->-- '''[[http://www.acidlogic.com/im_pamgrier.htm John Saleeby]]''', ''Interesting Motherfuckers''

Pamela Suzette Grier (born May 26, 1949 in Winston-Salem, UsefulNotes/NorthCarolina) is an American actress, known for being probably cinema's first ActionGirl. Any time you see a woman kicking ass in movies, you can thank her. She was voted the second greatest such actress of all time by Website/RottenTomatoes (behind Creator/MichelleYeoh).

In the 1970s Grier was an icon of {{Blaxploitation}} movies and many of her best-known films belong to that genre. It came as no surprise that she starred in Creator/QuentinTarantino’s 1997 homage to Blaxploitation, ''Film/JackieBrown''.

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!!Notable roles include:
!!!Films:
* ''Film/WomenInCages''
* ''Film/BeyondTheValleyOfTheDolls'' (an extra)
* ''Film/TheBigDollHouse''
* ''The Big Bird Cage''
* ''Film/BlackMamaWhiteMama''
* ''Film/{{Coffy}}''
* ''Film/ScreamBlaculaScream''
* ''Film/{{Hit Man|1972}}''[[note]]Remake of ''Film/{{Get Carter|1971}}''[[/note]]
* ''Film/FoxyBrown''
* ''Film/ShebaBaby''
* ''Film/{{Bucktown}}''
* ''Friday Foster''
* ''Film/FortApacheTheBronx''
* ''Film/SomethingWickedThisWayComes''
* ''Film/TheVindicator''
* ''Film/AboveTheLaw1988''
* ''Film/ClassOf1999''
* ''Film/BillAndTedsBogusJourney''
* ''Film/EscapeFromLA''
* ''Film/MarsAttacks''
* ''Film/JackieBrown''
* ''Film/SnowDay''
* ''Film/GhostsOfMars''
* ''Film/Bones2001''
* ''Film/TheAdventuresOfPlutoNash''
* ''Film/LarryCrowne''
* ''Film/TheManWithTheIronFists''


!!!TV series:
* ''Series/MiamiVice''
* ''Series/CrimeStory''
* ''Series/TheLWord''
* ''Series/{{Smallville}}'' (As Amanda Waller)
* ''Series/BlessThisMess''

!!!Video games:
* ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV''
* ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyInfiniteWarfare''

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!!Tropes associated with this actress:

* ActionGirl: Before [[Franchise/{{Alien}} Ellen Ripley]] and [[Franchise/{{Terminator}} Sarah Connor]] [[TropeCodifier codified]] this trope in movies, Pam Grier pretty much [[TropeMakers defined]] it.
* AfroAsskicker: She may very well be the TropeCodifier.
* AndStarring: ''Series/TheLWord'' put its actors' names in the credits in strict alphabetical order... with the exception of the final name: "and Creator/PamGrier as Kit". It presumably helped that Creator/JenniferBeals, its other big-name star, has a name early on in the alphabet.
* BlackJezebelStereotype: She is known for playing characters that [[PlayingWithATrope update the trope]], mixing it with some of the no-nonsense and stubborn traits of the SassyBlackWoman.
** ''Film/FoxyBrown'': On the one hand, Foxy Brown has the motive of enacting brutal revenge for the murder of her boyfriend and takes on a drug syndicate single-handedly. On the other hand, her fight scenes are filmed with gratuitous MaleGaze, with Foxy receiving [[MsFanservice sexualized]] ClothingDamage. Even scenes of Foxy being brutalized were sexualized to such an extent that critics described it as borderline soft-pornographic.
** ''Film/{{Coffy}}'': Similar to ''Film/FoxyBrown'', Coffy is a woman on a revenge mission, this time against those who enabled her sister's heroin addiction. She's a HeroicSeductress who disguises herself as a [[TheOldestProfession call girl]] to HoneyTrap her primary target. These scenes also deploy a MaleGaze perspective that highlight Grier's sex appeal. The tagline for the film highlights the InterplayOfSexAndViolence: "They call her 'Coffy' and she'll [[DoubleEntendre cream]] you!"
* {{Blaxploitation}}: She and Tamara Dobson became the genre's leading actresses.
* BMovie: Grier is actually not a bad actress, so it's unfortunate that she has mostly starred in B-movies, except for ''Film/JackieBrown''.
* MsFanservice: Especially in her early films, she spent a lot of time wearing lingerie, {{Stripperiffic}} clothes or no clothes at all.
* PopCulturalOsmosis: To many people it may seem as if she only made blaxploitation movies, which isn't true. Younger generations may only know her from appearing in ''Film/JackieBrown''.
* SassyBlackWoman: A common characteristic of most of her parts.
* SilkHidingSteel: As a trailer for ''Film/FoxyBrown'' has it, "She's brown sugar with a touch of spice... and '''murder''' if you don't treat her nice."
* [[SoulBrotha Soul Sista]]: Would you expect anything else when Hollywood's first ActionGirl is an African-American woman?
* TookTheBadFilmSeriously: [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools A rare positive example]]. She invoked this regarding her GirlsBehindBars films.
-->"They were my sounding board, where I really learned filmmaking. I was working for Creator/RogerCorman... and making $500 a day. I was green; I was hungry. These were my first roles so I made them as close to Shakespeare as possible. That's how I approached it and it got me work. The characters stood out. I got recognized."
* TheXOfY: The first episode of the Website/YouTube series ''WebVideo/MissingReel'' was titled "Blaxploitation," and ended by talking about ''Jackie Brown'' and called her "The Queen of Badass."
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