Paula Patton

Paula Patton was the daughter of Joyce (Vanraden) and Charles Patton. Her father is African-American , and her mother is caucasian, has German, English, and Dutch heritage. Her family lived directly across the street from the 20th Century Fox lot as she was growing-up, and she was a big film buff since her earliest days. Her mom was a teacher while her father was an attorney. Paula said that she attempted to escape when she was an innocent child through "pretending" to become someone else. So it's not a surprise that she took part in Hamilton Magnet Arts High School productions. Her most loved role was one of Abigail in "The Crucible". She pursued her studies at the University of Southern California, where she completed a course in film. In that time, she was awarded a 3-month task to create documentaries on PBS. Then she was employed as a production assistant on TV documentaries and Howie Mandel's talk-show. Then she began producing documentary segments for Medical Diaries (2000) airing on Discovery Health Channel. Paula claims that she was happy with what she was doing but her ambitions remains the same as it was when she was younger, so she began taking acting classes and changed gears to become an actor. She quickly became successful and, within three years, she had acted in the lead roles in major movies, Hitch (2005) and Idlewild (2006) and the female lead in Deja Vu (2006) opposite Denzel Washington.