Pamela Suzette Grier (born May 26, 1949) is an American actress. Described by Quentin Tarantino as cinema’s first female action star, she achieved fame for her starring roles in a string of 1970s action, blaxploitation, and women in prison films for American International Pictures and New World Pictures.
Grier met comedian Richard Pryor through her relationship with Prinze, but they did not begin dating until they were both casts in Greased Lightning. She helped Pryor learn to read and tried to help him with his drug addiction. After six months of sobriety, he relapsed.
In her memoir, she revealed her sexual relationship with Pryor caused cocaine to enter her system. Her doctor informed her that she had a “buildup of cocaine residue” around her cervix and vagina which he called an “epidemic” in Beverly Hills. He asked if perhaps Pryor put cocaine on his penis to sustain his erection but she was unsure.
The doctor then asked her if her mouth went numb while performing oral sex on Pryor, she said it did and he linked it to the Novocaine-like effects of cocaine.
Grier confronted Pryor about protecting her health, but he refused to use a condom. Pryor later got engaged to another woman while he was dating Grier in 1977.