L6 Interview with Pam Grier: Part 2 – Memoirs and the politics
Interview with Pam Grier: Part 2 – Memoirs and the politics
By B&TF
The second part of our interview took a serious turn when I asked Pam about our current political situation. Pam is so passionate about the politics and President Obama, she can talk forever on that subject. I didn’t ask many questions, I just let Pam talk. Unfortunately, I never have that much time for my interviews so here’s all we had time for.
B&TF: Well, they already signaling me to wrap this up but I still have a few questions.
PG: She has a volume here.
B&TF: Yes, I do but never enough time (laughing).
PG: You always do. We can sit here and talk for hours. Tolstoy, again…War and Peace (laughing).
B&TF: Well, I only read about Peace and skipped the War. We had to read it in school.
PG: I like the horses’ part. The horses and the boots (laughing).
B&TF: I have a question about your memoir book to let everyone know when it’s coming out.
PG: Yes, April 1st is the publishing day with the Grand Central Publishing and it called “Foxy: My Life in Three Acts.” It’s everything from the first when I was born, the first three weeks when I was in the car with my folks going to another base and the car flipped over three times on the freeway. Nothing happened. They didn’t have seatbelts back then and the lady was sitting next to my mom. My dad and the lady’s husband were sitting in front and we were in the back. The lady had a gold fish bowl with a gold fish in it and the fish died as the car flipped. That was my first step.
Then it talks about my life during Civil Rights Movement, all these political assassinations, civil unrest in the country. We talk about me entering into the cinematic world with all the gender issues, oppression and exploitation of women. You know, the fight, the battle, race, black, white, women, gender, big boobs, no boobs, all of that and my life up to The L Word. I want to tell you, I probably need a therapy. I need a padded room, about this size will do (laughing).
To do it was an arduous process because you’re going back and revisiting life and times that sometimes were poignant, moving and tragic. How I was able to continue my work and not being in Los Angeles. Even though I lived in Colorado, my work was my calling card and all my jobs have been out of LA anyway and I’ve had a 35-year career.
I remember when Tim Burton called, one of my dogs was dying of cancer and he wanted me to do “Mars Attacks!” And he’d just done “Beetlejuice” and that was phenomenal. I told him I couldn’t do it because my dog didn’t leave me when I had cancer, when I was fighting it. I was like, “Oh, I’m turning down Tim Burton, oh my God. I’ve always wanted to work with Tim Burton.” They wanted me to come and audition and I said that I can’t right now. I’m really sad and I can’t do a comedy, I don’t have it emotionally. So they called again and they said, “Well, can you put something on tape?” And I said, “Thank you but I can’t. I don’t want to disappoint you and show you bad work, I can’t do it. Thank you very much.” So I turned him down again.
The assistant called the first two times and the third call was Tim Burton himself. And he said, “Pam.” I said, “Who is this?” “Tim Burton.” And I said, “Oh, hi, I’m sorry to turn down your movie. I would really love to do it, I love your work in ‘Beetlejuice’. Michael Keaton should’ve gotten an Oskar for it because his work was brilliant. But I just can’t because my dog is seriously ill, he is dying and he took care of me, he helped me through a crisis.” And Tim said, “You don’t have to worry. The role that of the mother who would not leave her children and the Martians came to kill the President of the United States. We’ll wait, we shoot around you but as soon as you’re ready, let us know and we fly you in. You did your audition by not coming, by turning me down.”
B&TF: Wow, what a great story. Everyone should buy your book.
PG: And when I was living with Richard Pryor, the comedian, and he had a horse that was attacked and I put the horse in the back seat of my Jaguar to take to the vet to save his life. Jaguars are built well. You can put a horse in the Jaguar to get to the doctor (laughing). Wait ‘till you see it. Yeah, I put the horse in the back.
B&TF: Now we are really out of time so I have my last question. Now that Barack Obama is the President and I know how supportive you were by going to all the Democratic Conventions…
PG: Yes, Conventions and Caucuses, everything.
B&TF: So how do you think he’s doing so far?
PG: He’s doing brilliantly. You see, he can only reveal so much to the public. They can’t know everything. The public was so duped by the last administration. George Bush was the first un-elected President. He was un-elected. He took office in 2001. He gave his State of the Union speech in 2002 and in the speech he said, “We are at war and our economy is in recession.” Do you know that no one listened? I was sitting in the club at the airport and then man said, “Are we in recession?” And I said, “Yes, we have been and I know you don’t know it.” No one listened. The public is blaming the administration and I say, “No, no, you didn’t listen.” You said, “Here, take my money, take care of me.” And they took care of you. They stole from the public; they rob the public because the public gave up their power. We have a dumb down community in America that’s literally trying to recover. They were asleep, many didn’t use their common sense and now they are paying for it big time.
How can you have health insurance for your politicians and none for your people? Ask that question. That’s a human right to have health care. Then you can work and then you can pay taxes. You don’t work you don’t pay taxes. Then you’re on welfare and then you lose your home. So when you have an administrator that sais, “It’s okay, we’ll take care of you but we won’t take care of you so you just die on the street”…anarchy, raise up, fight, wake up. They now awake and they want Barack Obama to fix everything.
Excuse me but when Bush took office there was a 5.6 trillion surplus in 2002. By 2004, there was a 4.6 trillion deficit. How could you go through 10 trillion dollars in two years? It did not go to the war. Because from raising taxes each year from everyone it’s 16 trillion a year and there’s like the 20 million extremely wealthy people control 90 percent of the wealth in the country. Their names are on buildings, on parks and streets. They never take public transportations. They have private jets, two to three. They have yachts and they have health care. And they don’t care.
So when you have a nation that has been asleep and all of sudden they are awake now, “Well, tell us what’s going on. You’re going to have health care and you going to pull the plug on granny” and I’m saying, “Don’t print what these people are saying because they are ignorant in their thinking and they didn’t realize that Medicare and Medicaid are the government”. Those are government plans. And they are saying, “We don’t want government in our Medicare.” Well, that is the government. Are they that uninformed? I don’t want to call them stupid. I don’t want to call them ignorant because they are not. They are not informed. And they haven’t been informed. They haven’t been reading Wall Street Journal, they haven’t been alert. They are awake now because they have been pulled into the political process and now they are saying, “It’s not about him being black, it’s not about color at all.” It’s about this man who went to Harvard, who is highly intelligent and the highly intelligent hired him to take over this country because the middle class is the dumb down of America and they don’t understand. They were led as sheep into a war that is nonsensical.
We have a President who is so intelligent that he’s gonna face it. It’s gonna work but he can’t tell them everything. They wouldn’t understand it anyway and then the opposition would turn it around, put a tweaks on it, change the word, do this, do that. You know what, if George Bush was saying that we were in recession in 2002, why didn’t he try to do something about it? He had seven years to do something about it. He let people hurt and suffer and this country went down because he allowed it. And they are fighting him and I’m saying, “I want to hear your answer, I want to hear your solutions. You shouldn’t have let it get this far because it affected the world, not just America.”
So when I hear a Republican talking, I say, “Excuse me, you’re the cause of it. Try to step out of that. You let it happened. You had health care. The people that don’t have health care voted you in. How do you live with that? How do you sleep with that? I don’t want to hear it.” If the American public doesn’t have health care and they can’t work that means they can’t do their jobs so why should they pay your salary? Why don’t you take a cut in your salary and see if you can pay for your health care. Why don’t you work a five or four day week and see what happens? Why don’t you take a cut in your pay and see what happens? If everybody else has to, why can’t they? And I asked them that. Don’t get in my face and lie, I’m not going to let you. That’s how I feel about it.
There’s percentage of people who are now looking at him and say, “What’s a communist? What’s a socialist? Where was it? What country?” They don’t even know (laughing), they are misspeaking, they have misconceptions of so many political theories and it’s so embarrassing when they won’t even show it on BBC how dumb some of the Americans are. It’s sad because we have plenty of opportunities to go to best schools. I work around farmers who say, “My son doesn’t need to go to college. He can just go to high school and dig ditches” but when his body breaks down at forty and he can’t work anymore, he doesn’t have insurance and he’s not paying taxes and now you have a human being that’s not affected. It’s a waste of life. They should get the best education and continue to learn, and continue to read, and continue to be curious. Then they can vote better, and they’ll have a voice and they can make better decisions. And our country will be in a better place.
Just read parts 1 and 2. Wow. Thanks for that.