Pam Grier

Grier was discovered by quickie director Roger Corman, who cast her in his women-in-prison pictures The Big Doll House (1971) and The Big Bird Cage (1972). She became a staple of the blaxploitation movies of the early 1970s, playing big, bold, buxom, and essentially interchangeable roles in such films as Coffy (1973), Foxy Brown (1974) and Sheba, Baby (1975). With the demise of blaxploitation, Grier's career went into hiatus for some years. She worked her way into progressively larger character roles in the 1980s