Foxy: My Life in Three Acts
As the queen of the 1970s blaxploitation movies, Grier stands assured that her as-told-to autobiography will be welcomed by film-studies collections high and low. Iconic for her roles in such gems of the genre as Coffy and Foxy Brown, Grier has also appeared in mainstream films, the likes of Fort Apache the Bronx and Mars Attacks. Her blaxploitation efforts were made on shoestring budgets without much time for rehearsal or nuance, but when given a much meatier role—the title character in Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown—she turned in a spectacular performance (unfortunately, that excellent film was overlooked in the wake of Tarantino’s signature work, Pulp Fiction). Grier describes making the low-budget films, in which she often portrayed a tough but beautiful woman involved in a ludicrous plot, and also such noncommercial events as her 1974 night out with John Lennon, Harry Nilsson, and Peter Lawford, during which she was ejected from the Troubadour, an “in” spot at the time, though at least in the company of pop-culture royalty. --Mike Tribby