Hooray for Hollywood

Today Rick told me one of the best stories I’ve heard in a long, long time. It’s about one Ms. Pam Grier (Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, Foxy Brown, Coffey, Scream Blacula Scream). Apparently back in the 70’s, Ms. Grier was shooting a movie called The Arena, in which she played a badass sex bomb gladiator. In the movie’s finale, she was supposed to ride a giant horse up to the camera, with no bit and no reins.

Pam rides her horse up to the mark and stops. A cheeky crew member decides to play cute by smacking the horse on the ass. The horse freaks out, gallops off the soundstage, and starts streaking through the studio. Pam, who is riding bareback in a tiny leopard skin bikini, must grab the horse’s mane and hold on for dear life.

In a sublime coincidence, FELLINI is shooting Amarcord on the studio that day. He’s shooting some very subdued scene, when suddenly the now-topless, afro-ed, leopard-skin bottomed Pam Grier charges onto his set on a rearing white horse, screaming at the top of her lungs. Fellini stops the shoot, falls to his knees, and screams “My dream come true!”