You may or may not remember Pam Grier. For those who don’t, Pam was a popular African American actress back in the days when James Bond was still a master-class production starring the likes of Sir Roger Moore. Pam’s career was attempted to be recharged when she was hired to the leading role of Jackie Brown which debuted twenty-plus years ago. What we didn’t know about Pam is that she turned down the role as “Bond girl” in Sir Roger Moore’s Octopussy.
As per EW.COM, Pam Grier left the producers of James Bond Octopussy shaken, not stirred.
In the early 1980s, Grier was approached by the Broccoli family to appear as a Bond girl in the next film they were planning, 1983’s Octopussy, starring Sir Roger Moore as 007. Grier had already earned her status as the first black female action star for the blaxploitation hits Coffy (1973), Foxy Brown (1974), and Friday Foster (1975).
Grier wasn’t interested in playing eye candy or a damsel in distress. “My agents had me meet with the Broccoli family, and I’m going, ‘I’m not available,'” Grier tells EW. “They looked at me and said, ‘Well, why are you here?’ I go, ‘I don’t know. My agent told me to come meet.’ But I just wanted to do really in-depth character pieces that weren’t predictable. I turned down everything.”
At least she had attitude and self-respect enough to say what she truly felt.
