Paula Patton

Paula Patton was born in Los Angeles, California, to Joyce (Vanraden) and Charles Patton. Her father is African-American . her mother who is caucasian is of German, English, and Dutch roots. Her family lived right next to the 20th Century Fox lot as she grew older, and she was a huge fan of movies from the beginning of her life. Her mother, who appreciated good films also taught at a school as was her father, a lawyer. Paula states that as an teen she would get away from the world by "pretending to be someone else" which is why it came as surprising that she was a part-time actress in high school plays at Hamilton Magnet Arts High School. Her most loved role was "Abigail" from "The Crucible". But, she decided to pursue a film degree at the University of Southern California in a summer program, and received a three-month contract to create documentaries for PBS. She was then hired as a production assistant on documentaries on TV and Howie Mandel's talk show. She progressed to actually producing documentaries for Medical Diaries (2000) airing on Discovery Health Channel. Paula says that she liked what she was doing but her ambitions was the same as when she was young, so she learned acting and shifted gears to become a performer. She quickly became successful and, in just three years, had played the lead roles in major movies, Hitch (2005) and Idlewild (2006) as well as the female role in Deja Vu (2006) opposite Denzel Washington.