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 family ancestry. When she was a young girl, her family lived right next to the 20th Century Fox lot. She was a huge movie buff from the time she was a child. Her mom was a teacher , and her father worked as an attorney. Paula stated that she had tried to escape when she was a young girl 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 favorite character was that of "Abigail" in "The Crucible". She continued her studies at the University of Southern California, where she completed a course in film. The program was a success, and she was awarded a three-month assignment to make documentaries for PBS. As a result, she was able to work as a production assistant in documentary films on TV as well as Howie Mandel's talk show. She progressed to actually producing documentary segments for Medical Diaries (2000) airing on Discovery Health Channel. Paula says that she was happy with the work she was doing however, her goal was the same as when she was young, and she began acting classes and shifted gears to become a performer. She became a star quickly and was featured in Hitch (2006), Idlewild (2006) and Deja Vu (2006) as the female leading lady.