by Pam Grier
The trouble was that I was falling in love with Kareem. We were closely attached, and yet we were facing a rift that could separate us forever. With our relationship on a virtual precipice, it was clear that he would not leave his newfound religion for me. The dilemma was, Would I leave my world for him and his religion of choice? I had no answers as yet. While being taken care of by a husband might have its upside for some women, for me, it was out of the question. I had to do this on my own, while my mother, my friends, and the burgeoning women’s movement applauded and inflamed my dreams and desires.
CHAPTER 13
Me, an Actress?
I stifled a yawn one morning when Hal Gefsky, one of the agents at APA, stood in front of the reception desk where I was working job number one. I wasn’t bored. I was too tired to be bored because I was so busy shuttling back and forth between my three jobs in Hollywood and my boyfriend in Malibu.
“Pam,” Hal said thoughtfully, “have you ever considered acting?”
I looked at him like he was crazy. “Me, an actress?” I shook my head.
“But have you ever thought about it?” he asked again.
“No,” I said, laughing. I preferred being behind the camera, not in front of it. I was much too shy for that.
“Well, I’ve been working with Roger Corman, and I think you should read for a role in his latest picture.”
Roger Corman, the head of New World Pictures, was a prolific American producer of low-budget movies, “B” exploitation films that were notoriously sexy and mediocre and made a great deal of money. Corman was known for hiring hot women, sending them to the Philippines, where it was so much cheaper to make a movie, and marketing these exploitation films into international blockbusters.
Hal continued: “Roger’s looking for an actress for a role in his next Philippine location. He hasn’t had any luck so far, but you look perfect with your natural afro and no makeup. Do you want to audition for the part?”
“I’ve never even read a script in my life,” I said. As long as I’d been working there, I’d never read the multitude of scripts that crossed my desk because I was instructed not to. I did as I was told back then.
“We can fix that,” Hal said. “I have a ton of scripts you can read.”
“But I already have three jobs,” I reminded him. “I need to save money.”
“No better way to learn than to be in a film,” he urged. “Besides, you can make five hundred dollars a week for six weeks.”
That got my attention. With all of my jobs put together, I brought home a mere hundred and fifty dollars a week. “What’s the movie about?” I asked.
“It’s about women in a prison in the jungle. Bondage, torture, attempted escape, punishment, drug addiction, machine guns, sex. The usual.”
I couldn’t imagine myself in a movie like that, and I was about to say so when Hal beat me to the punch. “I know it sounds weird, Pam, but just let me tell Roger about you and see if he wants to see you,” he said before I could protest. “What have you got to lose?”
Hal walked out the door and was gone for about a half hour. The next thing I knew, he was back. Together we walked down Sunset Boulevard in the direction of New World Pictures to meet Roger Corman himself and Jack Hill, one of his favorite directors. When we got inside the building, I passed a group of women sitting in the waiting room, practicing lines, about to audition for his latest film, The Big Doll House, too. They all had on a ton of pastel blue and green sparkly eye shadow, false eyelashes, and various shades of neon pink to red lipstick. This film was supposed to be about women in prison in the jungles of South America. Where did all that teased-up hair fit in? Where would they find makeup? What movie did they think they were trying out for? They were dressed in bright colors, and yes, I was wearing my white blouse, my black skirt, my sensible shoes, and no makeup. My uniform.
I walked into the audition room shyly and said a quiet “Hello” to Roger, Jack, and a few people who were assisting them. Then I read the words on the page they handed me. I thought I did so-so, but I must have read reasonably well because Roger offered me the role on the spot. It must have been the way I looked, not my talent. He told me that I would be paid five hundred dollars a week for six weeks, just like they had promised. I agreed to do it right then and there—if they assured me that when I returned from location, I could have my job back as receptionist at APA.
Roger looked stunned at the request and so did Hal. “But you’re an actress now,” said Hal. “Why would you want to go back to your old job as receptionist where you make so little money?”
“Because actresses go from one project to the next and they only get paid when they work. I need steady money coming in. A regular salary. I have goals and I can’t be flitting from job to job, not knowing where my next paycheck is coming from.”
Amazed at my boldness, Hal Gefsky assured me that if I wanted it, I could have my old job back at the end of this gig.
I was a very good worker and I was focused, but I’d fallen short with my unwillingness and my basic inability to be dishonest in a business that thrived on deception.
“Tell them I’m not here” was one of the most oft-repeated lies that an agent expected from any assistant or receptionist. But I wouldn’t agree to do that. “No,” I said, “I’m not lying for anybody. I was raised better than that.”
When a movie star stood at my desk, demanding to see his or her agent right then, I refused to pretend the agent in question was in Paris at an opening—when he was hiding out in an office just down the hall. And I gave the struggling actors extra parking validations, which I was supposed to hoard. I was not good at policing anyone, and it went against my nature to lie. But I needed to know I had a job when I returned so I would not have to enter the “desperate” category. It was much too risky, since saving money was so crucial for my future.
Assured that I was safe in that regard, I walked out of the audition feeling stunned and anxious. They had offered to get me some coaching and suggested I read books on acting. I agreed to do all of it, but I was far more concerned about how Kareem would take this news than whether I could learn to read my lines.
When I told him about the offer, he looked concerned. “You’re going where?” he asked when I said the movie would be shot in the Philippines. He didn’t say much else because I failed to mention the exploitative nature of the film. Thank goodness he didn’t ask, because he would never have condoned it.
I decided to use this experience as a barometer of our relationship. I made my decision to go. Now I had to see if Kareem could stand me flying off to do a job, making my own money, and coming back home where we could be together again. In the back of my mind, I realized that, soon enough, Kareem would be moving to Milwaukee. What about my needs and wants? But then, a Muslim woman had no business worrying about herself. The more I studied the customs of my boyfriend’s new religion, the more I was sure I couldn’t pull it off. And then, the bottom line was that I really didn’t want to.
CHAPTER 14
The Big Doll House
I spent the several weeks before I left for the Philippines studying acting when I got home from work at the end of each day. I was drawn to the Constantin Stanislavsky approach in which he says “There are no small roles. Only small actors.”
His book An Actor Prepares became my bible. I was determined to be the best I could be when I finally boarded the plane and met the other girls with whom I would be working. In the meantime, while I prepared to go to Asia (packing six weeks’ worth of clothing and getting various immunizations), I continued the ongoing Q&A with Kareem. I never got any satisfaction.
“Why should I walk behind you on the street?” I asked him for the hundredth time.
“That’s how it is written,” he said.
“I can’t understand why you would want that,” I continued.
“It’s only when we’re outside,” he answered over and over. “Out in the world, we have to adhere to the rules. In our home, we c
an be relaxed and do what we want.”
“Isn’t that hypocritical?” I asked him as we went round and round.
“I’m willing, so we can be together.” He sounded like he was making a huge concession.
“I can’t tell if you love me or if marrying me is just part of your religion.”
He had failed to convince me that Islam would make me happy, especially since his answers to my questions were always the same as he switched all responsibility to Allah, his new God. So while I knew I would miss Kareem on such a long journey to a distant land, I was also tired of debating him. I looked forward to focusing on acting and making more money for my future than I ever had before.
My mom encouraged me to take the job in the Philippines. Buoyed by her excitement for my latest opportunity, I stepped onto the plane and left my ordinary life behind. After a seventeen-hour flight, three other actresses and I landed in Manila, bleary-eyed, wondering what day it was. We were met by a film coordinator at the airport as the muggy heat overwhelmed us. We gathered our luggage and made our way through the chaos of street vendors just outside the impossibly crowded Manila airport.
Finally, with a layer of perspiration covering our bodies, we were shuttled to the Hyatt, a high-rise luxury hotel on a white sand beach. I’ll never forget the tart, smoky scent of burning sugarcane stalks, palm fronds, and other field grasses that filled the air as we drove to our destination. At the hotel, we were treated like royalty. We relaxed in our sumptuous rooms, walked outside in the tropical breezes, and sampled the exotic tastes of the Orient.
After sleeping off our jet lag, we gathered at the production office the next day to start rehearsing. I was playing the part of a tough-talking bisexual prostitute named Grear. Jack Hill, the director, took me under his wing, opening up my cinematic studies to Italian and Swedish directors like Federico Fellini and Ingmar Bergman. I loved our discussions about each director’s individual style, and I was fascinated by every aspect of filmmaking, such as sound, timing, and special effects. I learned about period films, how the sound of an airplane overhead was unacceptable because in the 1800s, there were no airplanes. The entire process awakened something in me and stimulated my brain. I got hooked, and I jumped in with both feet. My endless question-and-answer rounds with Kareem took the back burner in my mind, as did studying my Muslim books. The only book I cared about right then was Stanislavsky’s An Actor Prepares, which I carried everywhere with me.
From the first day on the set, I considered myself an apprentice, not an accomplished actress, and that attitude kept me focused, honest, and humble. Roger had advised me, “Just listen to everyone and watch what the other women are doing. You’ll be fine.”
I did the best I could. I had plenty of time to think about it because all the other women were asked out by rich Philippine businessmen who wanted to wine and dine the “American actresses.” Nobody was hitting on me because of my ’fro (it scared them) and maybe also because I was quite tall and just as shy. Besides, I had a boyfriend. I took on a statuesque demeanor, clean-faced with no makeup, and I gave off an aura of “I’m not here for the regular bullshit.” After all, I didn’t drink and I wasn’t interested in dating because I was in love with Kareem, who was waiting for me back home. I took the opportunity to focus on honing my acting chops.
“An actor prepares.” I repeated Stanislavsky’s words over and over. I intended to be prepared at all times. For example, when one of the other cast members wanted to go out on the town in a wealthy section of Manila one night, she asked me to join her.
“I can’t. We have to work tomorrow,” I said. “I need to study my lines.”
“This is only a B movie, Pam,” she said. “You don’t have to work that hard. We can learn our lines in the morning.”
I passed, and she took off without me. I had no concept of categories like A, B, or C movies. A movie was a movie, and I intended to deliver an A performance, no matter what anybody else did. I analyzed each of my lines, why I was saying certain things, and I kept my acting goals in mind. I even sang the theme song for the film when they discovered I had a good singing voice. I learned to do my own makeup and hair since the artists who were hired for the job meant well but had no experience with African American coloring and hair textures. I even discovered a brand-new African American cosmetic company that made a luscious foundation to cover zits and my countless mosquito bites.
Kareem and I spoke a few times when we could get around the fourteen-hour time difference, between my work and his practices and games. I was always happy to talk to him, and we discussed the Philippine culture and the filmmaking process. But each time we talked, he always remembered to ask me, “Have you been reading the books?”
“Yes, I’m reading,” I said. As soon as we hung up, I went back to my acting studies and abandoned myself to the Philippine experience. I was accustomed to discovering new places from all of our moving around when I was a child, so I didn’t feel lonely or intimidated. Quite the opposite. Each morning I woke up, eager to see what this day would bring, and what I would learn about my new craft and my new surroundings. One day, I found a little stray kitten, a gray and black tabby, which I moved into my hotel room. Now I had a friend, someone to talk to and cuddle with at night.
The Philippine film crew couldn’t wait to talk with me about the Navy and Subic Bay, the American naval base of which they were so proud. I felt very connected, since my grandfather hailed from this area. The Americans had rescued the Filipinos from the Japanese and given them jobs so they could feed their families, and they all wanted to come to the United States. They were grateful and willing to overlook any differences we might have, and I was eager to do the same.
My hard work paid off when the dailies (the raw footage that we shot each day) came in. Everyone liked my performance very much. My wardrobe for that film consisted of one long T-shirt. Since I was playing a radical black woman, I could draw personally from my own anger and the anti-war rallies I’d observed at UCLA and in Colorado when I lived there. That kind of raw energy was real for me, and I worked hard to make sure none of it looked fake or manufactured. Jack Hill had told me that I needed to reach into my gut, not my mind, to find the real emotion. I tapped into my intensity, and Roger was thrilled that I could bring so much organic frustration and anger to my performance.
In fact, with the success of the dailies, they were writing another movie, and I was amazed when Roger asked me, “Would you like to stay and do one more?”
How could I refuse? I was already there and I would continue getting five hundred dollars a week for six more weeks, most of which I was saving. Kareem was less than thrilled to hear I was staying, but he didn’t protest too much. He knew at this point that he couldn’t control me, so he let me do what I wanted because he had no choice. Considering the kind of movies I was making, I realize now that it was a good thing he never came over to check it out.
In the second film, Women in Cages, I played a similar role to the first—an American woman in prison in a foreign country with a sadistic female guard. For this role, my wardrobe was pretty similar to what I wore in the first movie—a long T-shirt, a bra, and a pair of underpants. They sure weren’t losing any money on costumes. As we headed out to the location, when our raggedy-ass plane came to a slow roll on top of a mesa in a mountain city called Baguio, we had to jump out onto the ground, where people stood ready to catch us if we fell. I didn’t tell my mother I jumped out of a rolling plane, because she’d have had a stroke on the way to the airport to come get me.
Farther north, we shot in the mystical Luzon rice terraces, a veritable network of acres and acres of rice planted in intricate formations, starting at the top of the highest mountains and cascading all the way down to sea level. Described as the eighth wonder of world, these rice paddies are sometimes called “stairways to heaven.” But as magnificent as they looked, there was a little bit of hell in there, too, in the form of leeches, protozoa, and parasites that feasted on our naked fles
h.
During the course of filming Women in Cages, we stayed in areas so remote you could get eaten alive by bugs and lost forever with no hope of rescue. I constantly thought of my grandfather, born and raised in the Philippines, right here, among some of the kindest and most hospitable people in the world. We spent time out in the boondocks (a Philippine word, by the way), where we filmed in the jungles, watching out for deadly snakes and other predators. Then we returned to the glitzy high-end lifestyle of fancy hotels and revelry in the nightclubs of Manila.
This country had two societies, rich and poor, but I was surprised to see that even in the Philippines, with its severe class separation, life as we knew it was being shaken to the core by the global women’s movement. The Philippines had been occupied by the Spanish for more than a century, and in this extremely Catholic country, women were beginning to fight to get an education and to make their own money. “My wife wants to go to college and get a job,” the men complained to each other in Makati, the wealthiest business section of Manila.
I made some great friends while I was there, including a young male student with whom I listened to Cat Stevens and Led Zeppelin. He pointed out a group of tall, very dark-skinned indigenous Filipinos with nappy hair called the Kalingas, who came down from the mountains during the marketing season to replenish their supplies and sell their wares. As I already said, I was not frightened by “different.” Rather, I was fascinated, and I couldn’t get enough of anything that was new and unusual.
When the second movie was wrapped, I was approached to do a third. As gratified as I was and as much as I still wanted the money, I refused the offer for the time being and said I needed to get back home. I’d been gone for a little over three months, and my mom was having some health problems, and Kareem was getting anxious waiting for me. Once I got home and took stock, I could always fly back for a film if they still wanted me.