Paula Patton

Paula Patton was the daughter of Joyce (Vanraden) and Charles Patton. Her father is African American and her mother is caucasian. She is of German, English, Dutch and English ancestry. Her family lived just across the street from the 20th Century Fox lot as she grew up and she was a big film buff since her early days. Her mother, a schoolteacher, and her dad who was a lawyer were both avid movie buffs. Paula claimed that she tried to escape when she was an infant by "pretending" to be someone other than herself. So it's not a surprise that she took part in Hamilton Magnet Arts High School productions. Her most beloved role was one of Abigail in "The Crucible". In the end, she chose to take a course in film at the University of Southern California in an internship program for summer, and was awarded a three-month project to make documentaries for PBS. The result was that she began working as a production assistant on documentary films on TV, as well as on Howie Mandel's talk show. In the following time she was able to produce documentary segments on Medical Diaries 2000 on Discovery Health Channel. Paula says she loves her work, but she dreams of becoming an actor. She was almost immediately successful and, in just three years, she had acted in parts in major features, Hitch (2005) and Idlewild (2006) as well as the female leading lady in Deja Vu (2006) opposite Denzel Washington.