Unlike most people reviewing this book, I actually knew next to nothing about 70's B-movie and Blaxploitation star Pam Grier before I began. I'd only ever seen her in Jackie Brown and knew that Quentin Tarantino had written the role exclusively for her. However after receiving this book in a giveaway from the publisher (thank you First reads) I can now say that I've become an admirer of Ms Grier and her remarkable life. As far as biographies go this one is well written and flows easily with Pam telling her life story here in three "acts."
Starting with; Act One: The Early Years. This was surprisingly my favourite part of the memoir. Pam tells of her childhood growing up in 1950's Colorado as a tomboy and an army brat. Spending time riding horses on her grandparent's farm, hunting and singing in a gospel choir. Pam always felt inferior because of her skin color and I found the details of racism and segregation during that time eye opening and frankly shocking.When her Air Force father gets transferred Pam also spends a fantastic year living in England and faces equality for the first time in her life. Throughout we get a feeling of Pam's deep admiration for her mother, who as a strong, modern woman helped shape Pam's work ethic and independent outlook for her entire life. In the early 70's Pam's beauty is discovered and after winning several pageants Hollywood calls her name.
Act Two: Fro's and Freaks. Pam worked hard after arriving in Los Angeles. Holding down 3 jobs she goes on auditions and learns everything she can about the movie business. Along the way becoming a successful back up singer and model which leads to her eventual discovery and first movie role in The Big Doll House and a concurrent string of B exploitation movies. It was also during this time that Pam began dating a tall basketball star named Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Jr or Lew. Lew of course goes on to become Kareem Abdul-Jabbar after converting to Islam. This part of the book was totally intriguing, as I knew very little about the religion and could definitely feel Pam's heartbreak as she watched the man she loved change and although she tried couldn't bring herself to convert and therefore couldn't marry Kareem.
We also gain insight into her relationships with Freddie Prinz Jr and Richard Prior, both of which ended because of the mens well documented drug use. Pam does a fantastic job here of discussing her relationships without giving away any of the dirty little details which I respected. Labelled one of the most beautiful women alive Pam's career continues to flourish during the 80's with numerous TV appearances, awards and magazine covers. A particularly humorous event is recalled wherein Pam and John Lennon are kicked out of club Troubadour.
In Act 3: Finding The Balance we enter the 90's through to present. Which to me represents Pam`s strongest time as she battles cancer and journeys into self discovery, yoga and alternative medicine. Pam now knows who she is and has few regrets (although she still struggles to find a decent man.) This is also when Pam re-emerges as a Hollywood A-lister with the release of Jackie Brown and later the L Word.
One of my only issues with Pam's memoir would be that she tends to come off a little self righteous. I can't honestly believe that every relationship she had failed because of the other person's wrong doing or that she never drank or did drugs yet lived with Richard Pryor and hung out in the 80's cocaine culture. She also tends to name drop. A lot. But I got to thinking about that and I guess if all your friends are famous directors, musicians and movie stars and that's who you're hanging out with then its not really name dropping is it? Although instead of just saying out of the blue, Snoop Dogg dropped by for lunch you might give us a few details about the lunch, that way it doesn't sound like you're trying to impress us, were already impressed, you`re Pam Grier.
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Her father, Clarence Grier, was in the Army so she grew up in various places around the United States. Pam tells many tales of discrimination and segregation during the 1950's. Perhaps the happiest period in Pam's early life was the two years Pam and her family lived in England, where discrimination and segregation were not issues of daily life. Her amazing mother, Gwendolyn, taught her to "forgive" discrimination. Pam writes, "My mother showed me that while prejudice may be alive and kicking in some areas of the world, we are in reality a multracial world that requires great patience and understanding." Her mother, not wanting Pam to be dependent on any man for survival, stressed the importance of a good education.
After he retired, Pam's father divorced her mother and abandoned his entire family. Yet, whatever crisis Pam's family faced (and there were several) they always survived somehow. Pam originally intended to go to UCLA and study film. After winning second place in a beauty contest, she was approached by a Hollywood agent. Anxious to escape after surviving two devastating rapes, Pam gambled on Hollywood. While working as a receptionist at AIP Studios, she was approached to star in "The Big Doll House." Pam figured she could apply the $500 a week she would make on this overseas quickie towards UCLA. Instead of being a UCLA student, Pam became the Queen of the emerging "blaxplotation" film genre, starring in such classics as "Black Mama, White Mama", "Coffy" and "Foxy Brown." No drug-dealer, pimp, or other scum-bag, low-life Bad Man (or Woman, for that matter) ever stood a chance against the full-force of Pam Grier in her roles as divine, self-empowered heroines.
Off-screen, Pam tried to find the right balance between her "fame" and relationships. Pam offers more details about her private life than she does about her film career. She is surprisingly candid and blunt discussing her heartbreaking relationships with Kareem Abdul- Jabbarr, Freddie Prinze, and Richard Pryor. Pam was a positive influence on all these men. But she was also far too level-headed to indulge in the drugs and other destructive vices that ultimately destroyed the talented and tormented Prinze and Pryor. Pam's self-preservation instincts always kicked in at the right time. Those self-preservation instincts kicked into high gear when she was diagnosed with cancer. Never a victim and always a survivor, Pam attacked cancer with a vengence. She came out a winner; just in time to star in Quentin Tarantino's superb "Jackie Brown" (which he wrote especially for her from Elmore Leonard's "Rum Punch") and the groundbreaking Showtime series "The L Word." Tarantino stated in an interview that he really wanted Pam to be the first African-American actress to win the Academy Award as Best Actress for her performance as "Jackie Brown." That would have been wonderful, and so well deserved! (Halle Berry, of course, won that honor a few years later for her role in "Monster's Ball"). The reader may also wish that Pam's private life had been as rewarding as her career. Pam has had too many lousy boyfriends-- I wanted to kill the last two boyfriends she mentions in the book!
The real Pam Grier lives a quiet life on a small farm in Colorado; surrounded by her beloved horses and dogs. She has few regrets. The real Pam Grier who emerges in this book has lived life to the fullest and learned from it. She writes, "If you're so frightened of the great big world out there that you refuse to explore and learn about it, then you're limiting your experience and living only half a life."
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Love Jones-J
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Great Read
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