Paula Patton
- Actress
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Paula Patton was born in Los Angeles, California, to Joyce (Vanraden)
and Charles Patton. Her father is African-American and her mother, who
is caucasian, has German, English, and Dutch ancestry. Her family lived across
the street from the 20th Century Fox lot when she was growing up and
she was a fan of films from her earliest years. Her mother, who also
appreciated good films, was a schoolteacher, and her father was a
lawyer. Paula claims that as a girl she would escape by "pretending to
be someone else" so it was not a surprise that she acted in high school
plays at Hamilton Magnet Arts High School. Her favorite role was that
of "Abigail" in "The Crucible". However, she went on to study film at
the University of Southern California in a summer program, and won a
3-month assignment making documentaries for PBS. This led to her
working as a production assistant for TV documentaries, and also for
Howie Mandel's talk show. She
progressed to actually producing documentary segments for
Medical Diaries (2000) airing
on Discovery Health Channel. Paula now professes that she liked what
she was doing, but her dream remained the same as when she was small so
she took acting lessons and shifted gears to become a performer. She
was almost immediately successful and, within three years, had played
parts in major features, Hitch (2005)
and Idlewild (2006) and the female lead
in Deja Vu (2006) opposite
Denzel Washington.
