'Foxy' Pam Grier hits LI with book, movie

In the early 1970s, the title of Action Star was generally reserved for white men -- Eastwood, Heston, Bronson -- until a black woman named Pam Grier entered their midst.

Grier became an underground sensation in so-called blaxploitation movies such as "Black Mama, White Mama" (1972), "Coffy" (1973) and, most famously, 1974's "Foxy Brown." An imposing, curvaceous figure crowned by an Angela Davis-inspired Afro, Grier upended Hollywood stereotypes and became enough of a feminist icon to command the cover of Ms. magazine in 1975.

"Race was already there," Grier says of the cultural consciousness of the 1970s. "Women, that was still a question."

Grier, who lives in her native Colorado, will visit Long Island Wednesday night to sign copies of her memoir, "Foxy: A Life in Three Acts," and speak after a screening of "Jackie Brown," the 1997 Quentin Tarantino film that reintroduced her to a new generation of moviegoers.

"Everyone understood exactly, to work with Quentin, what they'd have to do," Grier says of the movie, which was made on a relatively modest budget in a short time frame. "Quentin said, 'It's four different stories. It's shooting out of sequence. It's going to kill you and it's going to kill me, but we'll try to keep it all straight.' "

Grier, 62, has never stopped acting -- even fans may not remember her recurring role on NBC's "Miami Vice" as Ricardo Tubbs' old flame -- and she may be experiencing yet another resurgence. On Friday she'll appear as Julia Roberts' co-worker in the Tom Hanks film "Larry Crowne," and she recently finished filming "The Man With the Iron Fist," a kung-fu movie directed by rapper RZA and co-starring Russell Crowe.

Throughout her 40-year

career, Grier says, she has taken her work seriously, even in jiggle movies like "Women in Cages." For that 1971 cheapie, Grier studied her lines carefully, despite her fellow actors' advice to chill out. "They'd say: 'You don't need to learn your lines. You're in a prison with a wet T-shirt.' I'd say: 'Yeah, I know. But I have to prepare.' "

WHAT Pam Grier appears with a screening of "Jackie Brown"

WHEN | WHERE 7 p.m. Wednesday, Cinema Arts Centre, 423 Park Ave., Huntington

TICKETS $20; members $15

INFO 800-838-3006; cinemaartscentre.org