Paula Patton

Paula Patton was the daughter of Joyce (Vanraden) and Charles Patton. Her father is African American and her mother is caucasian. She has German, English, Dutch and English ancestry. While growing up in the area, her family lived across from the 20th Century Fox lot. She was a huge film fan from her childhood. Her mom was a teacher while her father worked as an attorney. Paula states that she used to escape from her mother by pretending to be someone else while young. It's not surprising to learn that she was a part of Hamilton Magnet Arts High School's plays for high school students. Her favorite role was the one of Abigail in "The Crucible". She went on to study film at the University of Southern California in an internship program for summer, and got a 3-month job making documentary films for PBS. She was later hired as a production assistant for documentaries on TV and Howie Mandel's talk-show. In the following years, she was a producer of documentaries for Medical Diaries (2000 on Discovery Health Channel). Paula admits she is happy with doing what she loves, but she still dreams of being an actor. She became a household name quickly and was featured in Hitch (2006), Idlewild (2006) and Deja Vu (2006) as the female character.