Pam Grier

From Discogs:

Actress, born May 26, 1949, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, United States.

From Lastfm:

Grier was discovered by quickie director Roger Corman, who cast her in his women-in-prison pictures The Big Doll House (1971) and The Big Bird Cage (1972). She became a staple of the blaxploitation movies of the early 1970s, playing big, bold, buxom, and essentially interchangeable roles in such films as Coffy (1973), Foxy Brown (1974) and Sheba, Baby (1975).

With the demise of blaxploitation, Grier's career went into hiatus for some years. She worked her way into progressively larger character roles in the 1980s, including notably the stoned prostitute in Fort Apache the Bronx (1981), a witch in Something Wicked this Way Comes (1983), and Steven Seagal's detective partner in Above the Law (1988). She became a regular on the hit television detective series Miami Vice in 1985.

Ms. Grier highlighted a successful television series during the '90s on the network B.E.T.

Grier re-achieved leading lady status in 1997 as the titular stewardess in Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown, which many consider her best work so far. Grier is currently appearing in the television series The L Word.

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From Wikipedia:

Pamela Suzette "Pam" Grier (born May 26, 1949) is an American actress. She became famous in the early 1970s, after starring in a string of moderately successful women in prison and blaxploitation films such as 1974's Foxy Brown. Her career was revitalized in 1997 after her appearance in Quentin Tarantino's film Jackie Brown. She is one of a few African-American actresses to receive a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress. She has also been nominated for a SAG as well as a Satellite Award for her performance in the iconic film Jackie Brown. She received an Emmy Award nomination for her work in an Animated Program Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child. Rotten Tomatoes has ranked her as the second Greatest Female Action Heroine in film history. Director Quentin Tarantino, in an interview promoting Jackie Brown on Charlie Rose, remarked that she may have been cinema's first female action star.