Paula Patton

Paula Patton was the daughter of Joyce (Vanraden), and Charles Patton. Her father is African American and her mother is caucasian. She is of German, English, Dutch and English roots. Her family lived right next to the 20th Century Fox lot as she grew up and she was a big film buff since her early days. Her mom was a teacher while her father was an attorney. Paula stated that she had tried to get away as an infant through "pretending" to pretend to be someone else than. So it's not a surprise that she appeared in Hamilton Magnet Arts High School performances. Her favorite character was one played by Abigail in "The Crucible". After finishing the University of Southern California's summer program she pursued film studies and was then given a 3 month project to make documentaries for PBS. The result was that she began working as a production assistant for TV documentariesand on Howie Mandel's talk show. Later, she produced documentary segments for Medical Diaries (2000 on Discovery Health Channel). Paula admits she is happy with what she does, but she has a longing to be an actor. She became a household name within a matter of days and was in Hitch (2006), Idlewild (2006), and Deja Vu (2006) as the female role in the film.