Paula was born and raised in the Bronx, New York, where she began acting as a teenager, playing lead roles onstage at NYU's Bronx campus, a rare achievement for a woman at the time. She graduated from prestigious Bard College on full scholarships, earning her B.A. in Dramatic Arts, and entered the revolutionary off- and off-off-Broadway theatre scene of the 1960s.
While performing in an off-off-Broadway production of "The Rainmaker," Paula met James Mendenhall, with whom she co-founded the Playhouse-on-the-Mountain, a summer theatre on Mt. Cathalia in Ellenville, New York, where she starred in iconic shows such as "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and "Rain." After working on and around Broadway, Paula toured in shows during the late 1960s and appeared in the groundbreaking and controversial play "Geese," written by Gus Weill and produced by Mendenhall, which brought her to California for its West Coast debut.
After relocating to Los Angeles, Paula became a Lifetime Member and Moderator of The Actors Studio, an acting teacher at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, and a member of the iconic improv group Synergy Trust for four years in the early 1970s. She made extensive acting appearances in the 1970s and 1980s on television, including notable roles on "The Bob Newhart Show," "Barney Miller," and "Three's Company."
Pursuing her own self-discovery quest, Paula led est Graduate Seminars in Los Angeles for seven years in the 1970s and 1980s, co-ran the Actors Institute of Los Angeles in the 1980s, and appeared in multiple feature films, including "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" directed by Peter Masterson, and "Witchfire" starring Shelley Winters. After leading Dan Fauci's Mastery of Acting workshops, Paula brought that workshop to Esalen Institute in 1988, eventually morphing it into her own self-expression workshop for "civilians" as well as actors known as THE MAX.
Paula led THE MAX acting workshop for over 30 years at Esalen and in Vancouver, B.C., as well as overseas in England, Germany, and The Netherlands. She also taught Improv Theatre Games classes at Strasberg Institute, as well as at Esalen, and continued her participation at The Actors Studio in the Acting Unit and the Playwrighting Unit.
Paula's television and film career flourished in the Vancouver, B.C., Canada acting scene beginning in the late 1980s and early 1990s, where she worked on numerous productions, including "21 Jump Street" and "The X-Files." Additionally, Paula won roles in high-profile films, including her featured appearance in "Insomnia" starring Al Pacino, as well as in the cult-film hit "Freddy vs. Jason." Her recent television series credits include a running role on the miniseries "Terminal City," a lead role on the sitcom "Mr. Young" for four seasons, and as Andie MacDowell's mother on "Cedar Cove." She also enjoys performing voiceovers for animation, video games, documentary narration, commercials, and books-on-tape.
