Paula Patton

Paula Patton was born in Los Angeles, California, to Joyce (Vanraden) and Charles Patton. Her father is African American and her mother is caucasian. She is of German, English, Dutch and English family ancestry. When she was a young girl her family was located right close to the 20th Century Fox lot. She was a fervent film fan from her childhood. Her mother, too, who enjoyed good films was a teacher, as was her father, an attorney. Paula stated that she had tried to escape when she was an innocent child through "pretending" to appear to be someone different from herself. Therefore, it's no surprise that she was a part of Hamilton Magnet Arts High School productions. Her most loved role was that of "Abigail" in "The Crucible". However, she went on to study film at the University of Southern California in the summer program and was awarded a three-month project to make documentary films for PBS. The result was that she began working as a production assistant for TV documentariesand on Howie Mandel's talk show. Later, she made documentary segments for Medical Diaries (2000 on Discovery Health Channel). Paula declares she loves what she's doing, but her ambition was the same. She began acting classes and switched gears to be a performer. It was a quick success and, in just three years of her debut, she had appeared in parts in major features, Hitch (2005) and Idlewild (2006) and was the female lead in Deja Vu (2006) opposite Denzel Washington.