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 heritage. Her family resided across the street from the 20th Century Fox lot when she was young and she was a big fan of movies in her early age. Her mother, a teacher as well as her father, a lawyer, were both avid fans of films. Paula claims that as an adult she would escape by "pretending to play a different character" which is why it came as a surprise that she acted in high school plays at Hamilton Magnet Arts High School. Her most beloved role was of "Abigail" in "The Crucible". She pursued her studies at the University of Southern California, where she completed a course in film. It was during this time that she was awarded a 3-month assignment to produce documentaries for PBS. This led to her being employed as a production assistant for television documentaries, as well as on Howie Mandel's talk show. She then began to produce documentary segments for Medical Diaries (2000) airing on Discovery Health Channel. Paula now professes that she loved what she was doing however her goals remained the same as when she was young, so she learned acting and changed gears to become a performer. She made headlines almost immediately and was in Hitch (2006), Idlewild (2006) and Deja Vu (2006) as the female role in the film.