 Grier in 2008 at the Movieguide Faith and Value Awards Gala | |||||
| No. 76 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Position: | Defensive tackle | ||||
| Personal information | |||||
| Born: | July 14, 1932 Cuthbert, Georgia, U.S. | ||||
| Height: | 6 ft 5 in (1.96 m) | ||||
| Weight: | 284 lb (129 kg) | ||||
| Career information | |||||
| High school: | Abraham Clark (Roselle, New Jersey) | ||||
| College: | Penn State | ||||
| NFL Draft: | 1955 / Round: 3 / Pick: 31 | ||||
| Career history | |||||
| Career highlights and awards | |||||
| Career NFL statistics | |||||
| |||||
| Player stats at NFL.com · PFR | |||||
Roosevelt "Rosey" Grier (born July 14, 1932) is an American actor, singer, Protestant minister, and former professional football player. He was a notable college football player for Pennsylvania State University who earned a retrospective place in the National Collegiate Athletic Association 100th anniversary list of 100 most influential student athletes. A professional player for twelve seasons, Grier was a member of the New York Giants and the original Fearsome Foursome of the Los Angeles Rams. He played in the Pro Bowl twice.
After Grier's professional sports career, he worked as a bodyguard for Senator Robert Kennedy during the 1968 presidential campaign. Grier was guarding Ethel Kennedy when Senator Kennedy was shot. Although unable to prevent the assassination, Grier took control of the gun and subdued the shooter, Sirhan Sirhan.
Grier hosted his own Los Angeles television show and made approximately 70 guest appearances on various shows during the 1960s and 1970s.
Grier is known for his serious pursuit of hobbies not traditionally associated with men.[1] Grier became an ordained Protestant minister in 1983 and travels as an inspirational speaker. He founded American Neighborhood Enterprises, a nonprofit organization that serves inner city youth.
Born in Cuthbert, Georgia as one of twelve children, Grier was named after Franklin Delano Roosevelt.[2]
Grier played football at Abraham Clark High School in Roselle, New Jersey, graduating in 1951.[3][4] At Penn State, he won the IC4A and Penn Relays shot put and discus, as well as qualifying for the javelin finals, and was a Track & Field All-American in 1954 and 1955.[5]
After playing college football at Penn State University, Grier was the 31st overall pick of the 1955 NFL Draft, taken in the third round by the New York Giants. He played with the Giants from 1955 through 1962, which included an NFL Championship in 1956 and five Eastern Conference titles (1956, 1958, 1959, 1961, 1962). Grier was selected for the Pro Bowl in 1956 and 1960, and was named All-Pro at defensive tackle in 1956 and 1958–1962.[6]
After eight seasons with New York, Grier was traded in July 1963 to the Los Angeles Rams in exchange for defensive tackle John LoVetere and a high future draft pick.[7][8] He was part of the "Fearsome Foursome", along with Deacon Jones, Merlin Olsen, and Lamar Lundy,[9] considered one of the best defensive lines in football history. His career ended in 1967 due to a torn Achilles tendon. Despite being the oldest member of the Fearsome Foursome, Grier is the last surviving member following the passing of Jones on June 3, 2013.[10]
After his retirement, Grier hosted the Rosey Grier Show on KABC-TV, a weekly half-hour television show discussing community affairs in Los Angeles.[11]
Grier served as a bodyguard for his friend, United States senator and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy. He was guarding Ethel Kennedy, the Senator's wife, who was then expecting a child, the night that Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles in 1968. Grier and Olympic decathlon gold medalist Rafer Johnson heard shots fired ahead of them. As Grier caught up he saw men wrestling with gunman Sirhan Sirhan. Grier jumped into the fray. Grier states, "So I see George Plimpton has the gun pointed at his face, and I'm concerned that it is going to go off, so I put my hand under the trigger housing and I pulled back the hammer so it couldn't strike. I wrench the gun from Sirhan. I find the pin and I ripped it out and held it. Now I have the gun in my hand, so I shove it in my pocket." Grier later said, "I grabbed the man's legs and dragged him onto a table. There was a guy angrily twisting the killer's legs and other angry faces coming towards him, as though they were going to tear him to pieces. I fought them off. I would not allow more violence."[12][8]
In December 1968, he accompanied Bob Hope on "Operation Holly," Hope's 1968 USO tour, Grier performed alongside headliner Ann-Margret and others at the U.S. bases at Long Bình, Cam Ranh Bay, Da Nang, Chu Lai, and Phù Cát, as well as aboard the carrier USS Hancock and the battleship USS New Jersey, and at Korat Royal Thai Air Force Base and U-Tapao Royal Thai Navy Airfield in Thailand, along with stops in South Korea and Guam.[13]
Grier has appeared in a number of films and television shows. One of the first football stars to successfully make the transition to acting, he made about 70 television guest appearances. They include a role as one of the security contingent in "The Brain Killer Affair" episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964), as well as a cameo playing an athletic trainer in an episode of I Dream of Jeannie. He became a regular cast member, starting in 1969, on the series Daniel Boone,[14] Make Room for Granddaddy, and The White Shadow. In one White Shadow appearance, he donned his No. 76 Los Angeles Rams jersey from his NFL playing days.
He appeared as a panelist on the television game show Match Game 74. Grier starred in television shows and films including The Wild, Wild West (1967), Desperate Mission (1969), Carter's Army (1970), Skyjacked (1972), The Thing with Two Heads (1972), McMillan & Wife (1974), Sesame Street (1975), The Treasure of Jamaica Reef (1975), Movin' On (1975-1976), The Love Boat (1979), The Glove (1979), Roots: The Next Generations (1979) and The Seekers (1979). Grier appeared in the 1974–1976 NBC TV series Movin' On with Claude Akins, which was filmed in Grier's home state of Georgia. He appeared in a third-season episode of Quincy, M.E. titled "Crib Job" in which he played himself as the director of a group called Giant Step. He appeared in two episodes of Kojak, one in the third season and one in the fourth season, as a bounty hunter named Salathiel Harms. He also appeared on a 1977 episode of CHiPs as a distraught motorist who, during a routine traffic stop, proceeds to destroy his car in frustration by pulling it apart piece by piece. He appeared as a celebrity contestant on Celebrity Bullseye during that program's 1981–82 season. In 1983 he also appeared in the series The Jeffersons, (episode 10x9) as the owner of a pool hall in Harlem, who in the past had been a bully to George Jefferson at school. Grier also guest-voiced a 1999 episode of The Simpsons titled "Sunday, Cruddy Sunday".[13]
Grier first released singles on the A label in 1960, and over the following twenty-five years he continued to record on various labels including Liberty, Ric, MGM, and A&M.[15] His recording of a tribute to Robert Kennedy, "People Make the World" (written by Bobby Womack), was his only chart single, peaking at No. 128 in 1968. Grier sang "It's All Right to Cry" for the children's album and TV program Free to Be… You and Me.
Grier spent his early life campaigning for Democrats before becoming a Republican in the early 80s.[citation needed] He appeared in the Democratic fundraiser "America Goes Public" on September 15, 1973 [16] and regularly attended the Democratic National Convention, including the conventions at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago on August 28, 1968 [17] and at Madison Square Garden in New York City on August 11, 1980.[18]
He was a featured speaker at the 1984 Republican National Convention; during its evening session on August 20, 1984, he endorsed President Ronald Reagan for re-election.[19]
On January 5, 2017, Grier announced his intention to run for governor of California as a Republican in the 2018 California gubernatorial election.[20] He ended his candidacy in July 2017.[21]
Grier has also written a number of books, and now travels the United States as an inspirational speaker. He is a cofounder of American Neighborhood Enterprises, an organization that works to help disadvantaged city dwellers buy homes and receive vocational training. Grier was ordained a Protestant minister in 1983, and the next year he founded his nonprofit resource center for inner-city teens, developing spiritual and educational programs for disadvantaged youths.
Grier is a prominent member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. He is also on the Milken Family Foundation board of trustees and serves as its program administrator of community affairs.
He has been honored by Penn State as recipient of the Distinguished Alumni Award in 1974, and the Alumni Fellow Award in 1991. He was named to the NCAA's "List of the 100 Most Influential Student-Athletes" published to commemorate the NCAA's 100th anniversary. In 1997, he was inducted into the New Jersey Sports Hall of Fame.
In 2017, he was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame.
Grier was well known in the 1970s for his hobbies of needlepoint[22] and macrame. He authored Rosey Grier's Needlepoint for Men in 1973.[22]
Grier has a daughter from an early relationship named Sherryl Brown-Tubbs. He later married Bernice Lewis, who had one child, Denise, whom he adopted before he and Lewis divorced. He then married Margie Grier and had a son, Roosevelt Kennedy Grier, in 1972. He and Margie divorced in 1978 and remarried in 1980. Margie Grier died on June 10, 2011. He married Wichita school teacher Cydnee Seyler on April 30, 2013.[23] A nephew, Mike "Big Daddy" Grier, followed his uncle's career in sports when he enrolled as a student at Boston University, but he played ice hockey instead of football; he subsequently had a 14 year NHL playing career and became the league's first black general manager with the San Jose Sharks.[24][25] He is the cousin of actress Pam Grier.
