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 family ancestry. While growing up, her family lived right across from the 20th Century Fox lot. She was a huge film enthusiast since her early years. Her mother, who also appreciated good films also taught at a school and her father was an attorney. Paula admits that she used to escape from her mother by pretending to be someone else as an infant. It is not surprising that she was involved in Hamilton Magnet Arts High School's high school productions. Her most loved role was one played by Abigail in "The Crucible". She completed her studies at the University of Southern California, where she completed a summer course in film. It was during this time that she was awarded a 3-month task to create documentaries on PBS. This led to her being employed as a production assistant in documentary films on TV, as well as on Howie Mandel's talk show. Then she began producing documentary segments for Medical Diaries (2000) airing on Discovery Health Channel. Paula says she enjoys her work, but she dreams of becoming a performer. She was almost immediately successful and, in just three years, had played part in two major feature films: Hitch (2005) and Idlewild (2006) and also the female character in Deja Vu (2006) opposite Denzel Washington.