15 Throwback Photos of the One and Only Pam Grier

Once described by Quentin Tarantino as film’s first female action star, Pam Grier’s iconic rise found her righting wrongs, taking names, and becoming a beauty icon still impactful today. The fourth season of TCM’s docu-podcast The Plot Thickens: Here Comes Pam, out today, finds Grier and her loved ones revisiting emblematic moments from her life—and, of course, her life in looks. 

Since her arrival on the screen scene in the 1970s, Grier has been synonymous with feminist badassery. The decade’s Blaxploitation films found a center point in the actress. She existed at the nexus of physicality and femininity, her parade of vigilante characters fighting for their rights and influencing the era’s aesthetics in the process. From the glamorous mullet that kicked off her career in Coffy to Foxy Brown’s enduring Afro to her brushed-up Disco curls and bombshell blowouts, Grier is a defining force, embodying strength, spirit, and style from mane to toe.

 Her looks also lean chameleonic, both reflective and refractive. Grier simultaneously drove and adapted, embodying the evolution of Black beauty throughout the entirety of the ’70s and ’80s. In terms of influence, in short, Grier is a whole lotta woman. Here, a look back at 15 iconic throwback images of the one and only, Pam Grier.