Pam Grier
By:
May 26, 2009
PAM GRIER (b. 1949) was the Joan of Arc of late-night UHF-TV, when such a thing still existed. Starting with The Big Dollhouse (1971), a film which absolutely must be seen on drugs to be appreciated fully, Grier built a career around becoming the avenging angel of righteous black female anger at The Establishment, eventually being reintroduced to a new generation by Quentin Tarantino in Foxy Brown (1997). But it was always beneath Grier’s talents to play such a cardboard cutout proxy. Grier on-screen is a glowing vision, and it’s not just because she’s an absolute knock-out. She nearly takes your breath away with her presence. Just standing in a room she walks into must be tough; after all, she’s the “baddest one-chick hit-squad that ever hit town!”
— Text and illustration by Joe Alterio. To view a gallery of Alterio’s HiLobrow illustrations, click here.
On his or her birthday, HiLobrow irregularly pays tribute to one of our high-, low-, no-, or hilobrow heroes. Also born this date: | Pushkin | John Wayne |
READ MORE about the Blank Generation (1944-53).