Paula Patton

Paula Patton is the daughter of Joyce (Vanraden), Patton, and Charles Patton. Her father is African-American, while her mother is caucasian and has German, English and Dutch origins. Her family lived across the street from the 20th Century Fox lot when she was growing up , and she was a huge fan of movies from her early days. Her mother, who liked good movies, was a schoolteacher, as was her father, a lawyer. Paula claims that she used to hide from her mother by pretending to be someone else while when she was a kid. It's not surprising that she was involved in Hamilton Magnet Arts High School's high school productions. Her most beloved role was one played by Abigail in "The Crucible". After graduation from the University Southern California's summer program, she studied film and was assigned a three-month assignment to create documentaries on PBS. This led to her working as a production assistant for documentary films on TV, as well as on Howie Mandel's talk show. In the following years, she was a producer of documentary segments for Medical Diaries (2000 on Discovery Health Channel). Paula declares she loves her work however her goal was the same. She took acting lessons and then switched to becoming an actor. She was almost immediately successful and within three years, she had acted in roles in major films, Hitch (2005) and Idlewild (2006) and also the female leading lady in Deja Vu (2006) opposite Denzel Washington.