Pam Grier Wouldn't Join The James Bond Movie Octopussy Because She Didn't Want To Be An 'Afterthought'
Pam Grier has lived an incredible life. Her autobiography, "Foxy: A Life in Three Acts" is hopefully going to be turned into a biopic that can finally celebrate her trailblazing career. An entire generation of fans know her as the titular character in "Jackie Brown," Tarantino's follow-up to "Pulp Fiction," based on the crime novel "Rum Punch" by Elmore Leonard. Decades before that, Grier became widely known as the first female action star playing street-savvy, no-nonsense characters in "Coffy" (She'll cream you!), "Foxy Brown", and the more comedic mystery "Friday Foster."
An undeniable acting force and sought-after sex symbol, it was only a matter of time before more challenging, high-profile roles started to come Grier's way. After essentially owning the 1970s, Grier started off the '80s taking on more character-driven parts, like in the boxing drama "Tough Enough" starring Dennis Quaid, and the classic police procedural "Fort Apache the Bronx" starring Paul Newman. In what could have been an iconic role for Grier, the Broccoli family approached her to appear opposite Roger Moore as a Bond girl in 1983's "Octopussy."
For a lot of actors, the chance to play a Bond girl would be a huge break, but Grier was on an entirely different path by that point in her career. She had little to no interest in moving away from portraying empowered female characters to playing a slinky second fiddle to Roger Moore's cheeky Bond impression. Grier did take the meeting with the Broccoli family, although it was more of a favor to her agent at the time. "I just wanted to do really in-depth character pieces that weren't predictable," she recently told Entertainment Weekly. "I turned down everything."
Pam Grier vs. James Bond
Would it have been exciting to see Pam Grier as a Bond girl? Of course! After seeing the kind of Bond movie "Octopussy" became, however, it's difficult to imagine Grier's strong onscreen presence gelling with Roger Moore and the rest of the story. The distinction of becoming a Bond girl would eventually go to Maud Adams as Octopussy and Kristina Wayborn, who played the sexy antihero, Magda. For Grier to really stand out, "Octopussy" would have needed to expand her role to make her more of an equal to Bond. At the time, Grier already knew she wasn't the right fit, telling EW:
"A Bond girl is an afterthought, a CliffsNote, perhaps. I asked, 'Am I challenging Bond? Am I out to kill him? Will I kill him before he kills me?' They hadn't thought of that. I gave them other ideas, which were much more profound and interesting than what they were doing."
Grier was actually turning down a lot of roles in the early '80s, mostly to focus on becoming a better actor. The decision not to play a Bond girl may have deprived Bond fans of another truly memorable performance on par with Ursula Andress in "Dr. No," but it just wasn't the right time or the right project. Grier had worked hard to distance herself from revenge films and the blaxploitation genre that made her a 42nd Street sensation. Maybe if there had been more of an effort to craft a character around Grier's strengths, the idea of playing a Bond girl would have been an easier sell.
Stagecoach Mary
To help justify Grier's decision to stay out of the Bond legacy, it's important to find out what her mindset was and the direction she wanted her career to take after her massive early success. Grier simply wanted more, telling New York magazine in 1975, "I think I'd rather just make movies for black people. You know, just be satisfied with what I'm doing. But I can't. I'm too ambitious. I want all the acclaim." Without a doubt, Grier would have received national attention as a Bond girl in "Octopussy," but she didn't want to become typecast by Hollywood.
Instead of rehashing the plot from "Coffy" over and over again, Grier actually wanted to star in a biopic about a little-known historical figure, Mary Fields, who became the first black female stagecoach driver in 1890s Montana. "The studio said no one would believe there was a black female stagecoach driver, even though it's in the books," she told The New Yorker. "They said Bond girls are more interesting, and bikinis. The needs of Hollywood are different than what my needs are."
Dubbed Stagecoach Mary, the real Mary Fields was a hard-hitting, gun-toting mail carrier that fended off bandits and thieves out on the trail. She was said to have been a heavy drinker with "the temperament of a grizzly bear." Surely, for longtime fans of Grier, the choice to see her play a Bond girl in "Octopussy" or an inspirational historical figure like Mary Fields should be a fairly easy decision to make. At a crossroads in her career, unfortunately, we didn't get to see Grier in either role. Still, it's fun to think about what could have been.