Pam Grier has played her share of action heroines.

Grier, who plays the commanding officer in John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars, has triumphed over a lot of baddies in her more than 30 feature films, but she's proudest of her battle with cancer."Back in 1988, the doctors discovered I had a very invasive cancer. They gave me 18 months to live. My doctor cried on the phone when he told me the news," recalls the star of such films as Foxy Brown, Coffy and Jackie Brown.

Grier agreed to radiation treatments that slowed the cancer but eventually turned to Eastern medicine, seeking out a Chinese herbalist.

"It may have been the combination or one of them that did the trick, but I'm here today. I take herbs every day and I haven't had a cold in 15 years," she says.

MEMORY SAFE

Grier's greatest fear during her long recovery period was that "all the drugs and radiation might have affected my memory to the point where I could never act again but I'm happy to say my memory is as good as ever."

Ghosts of Mars opens Aug. 24.


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