Timeline
Explore the timeline of the life and career of Pam Grier.
Pam Grier is born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Her family moves around, due to her father’s career in the Air Force, until they ultimately settle in Denver, where Pam grows up.
On a trip with the Echoes of Youth choir, Pam finds herself Los Angeles just as the Watts Rebellion breaks out.
After winning a beauty contest in Denver, Pam is encouraged by a Hollywood agent to move to Los Angeles. She relocates to the West Coast, hoping to go to UCLA for medical school.
Pam gets a gig singing backup for some of the biggest musicians of the day, including Bobby Womack, Sly Stone and Stevie Wonder.
At a trendy LA nightclub, Pam meets her first serious boyfriend, a UCLA Senior named Lew Alcindor – who’d soon be known around the world as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
After a chance audition, Pam shoots several low-budget “women in prison” movies in the Philippines, establishing her as an actress.
Pam explodes onto the Blaxploitation scene with Coffy, a massive hit for American International Pictures. She follows it up a year later with another major success, Foxy Brown.
While promoting her movies, Pam meets a young comedian named Freddie Prinze, who would become one of the great loves of her life.
Pam becomes a style icon with the release of two new movies, Sheba Baby and Friday Foster. She is also recognized as a staunch feminist when she appears on the cover of Ms. Magazine.
Pam stars with comedian Richard Pryor in the movie Greased Lightning, where on-set tension eventually blossoms into a tumultuous love affair.
Pam dips into television acting with appearances on the miniseries Roots: The Next Generations and, a year later, The Love Boat.
Pam returns to movies in a big way, playing a drugged-out murderer opposite Paul Newman in Fort Apache: The Bronx.
Pam makes her stage debut in Sam Shepard’s Fool for Love, at the Los Angeles Theatre Center.
Doctors diagnose Pam with cancer and tell her she has 18 months to live. She proves them wrong with a healthy lifestyle that includes leaving Los Angeles to spend more time in Colorado.
Pam is wooed back to Hollywood with roles in a pair of big-budget action movies, Escape from LA and Mars Attacks!
Quentin Tarantino, hot off the success of Pulp Fiction, casts Pam as the lead in his next film, Jackie Brown.
Pam lands her biggest TV role yet, in the groundbreaking Showtime drama The L Word.
