Biography for
Paula Wagner More at IMDbPro »

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Mini Biography

Paula was born in Youngstown, Ohio to Edmund Jamison Kauffman and Sue Kauffman, with her two sisters Sally Hale and Susan Brooks. She started her career in the Youngstown Playhouse, then attended Carnegie Mellon University in the Drama department. Paula left Carnegie Mellon to act in New York, where she was asked back to Carnegie Mellon. She graduated Summa Cum Laude and went back to New York to marry Robin Wagner, a Broadway Set designer. Paula and Robin divorced and Paula went to Los Angeles to become an agent for CAA, Tom Cruise's agent. From there, she met Rick Nicita and married him. During her career at CAA, she and Tom formed C/W productions.

Mini Biography

Paula Wagner has worked in the top ranks of the entertainment industry as a powerful talent agent, a successful producer, and as a top studio executive. Currently, Wagner is developing films and producing through her new production company, Chestnut Ridge.

Wagner began her career at Creative Artists Agency where she spent 15 years representing some of the top actors in the business such as Tom Cruise, Sean Penn, Oliver Stone, Val Kilmer, Demi Moore, Liam Neesan, Robert Towne and others. In 1993, she launched Cruise/Wagner Productions with her former CAA client Tom Cruise. For the next 13 years, she and Cruise produced a wide range of pictures that earned numerous awards, widespread critical praise, and global box office success. The first film released under the C/W banner was the international hit "Mission: Impossible," the success of which brought the company the 1997 Nova Award for Most Promising Producers in Theatrical Motion Pictures. C/W went on to produce such critically acclaimed films as "Without Limits," "Shattered Glass," "Narc," "The Others," "Vanilla Sky," "Elizabethtown," "The Last Samurai" and "Ask the Dust," not to mention such international blockbusters as Steven Spielberg's "War of the Worlds" (which Wagner executive produced) and "Mission: Impossible II" and "Mission: Impossible III," which Wagner produced. In all, in the decade that separated "Mission: Impossible" and "Mission: Impossible III," films produced by Cruise/Wagner Productions earned more than $3 billion in worldwide box office receipts.

Wagner was co-owner of United Artists Entertainment, LLC (along with Cruise and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc.) and also served as the company's Chief Executive Officer from 2006 to 2008. During her tenure, Wagner orchestrated relationships with some of the top talents in the business including Oscar-winning screenwriters Christopher McQuarrie, Paul Haggis, Steve Zaillian and Academy-Award nominee Guillermo del Toro, among others. UA released the Robert Redford political thriller "Lions for Lambs" and the World War II thriller "Valkyrie," directed by Bryan Singer and starring Cruise. Wagner was honored by Premiere magazine with the Women in Hollywood Icon Award in 2001. The following year she was featured in Bravo's "Women on Top," a documentary which profiled exceptional women in entertainment. In 2004, she and Cruise were honored by Daily Variety as "Billion-Dollar Producers." That same year, Wagner and Cruise received the UCLA/Producers Guild of America Vision Award. In 2006, Wagner was the recipient of the Excellence in Producing Award at the Sarasota Film Festival and served as the president of the First-Time Directors Jury at the Venice Film Festival. She was also honored by the Costume Designers Guild with its Swarovski President's Award in 2008. In October of '06, she received the Sherry Lansing award from the Big Brothers and Big Sisters Organization.

Wagner serves on the Board of Trustees of Carnegie Mellon University, where she received her degree. She has lectured at the American Film Institute, the Motion Picture and Television Fund Foundation, the Harvard Business School, Stanford, NYU and was the keynote speaker for the 1996 Toronto Film Festival. She is a member of the American Cinematheque's Board of Directors and the Executive Committee of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, and the board of the National Film Preservation Foundation through the Library of Congress.

Prior to her career as an agent and producer, she began as an actress and performed both on and off-Broadway and was a member of the Yale Repertory Company. She is also a published playwright, co-authoring the play "Out of Our Father's House". She was a member of Actor's Equity, Screen Actors Guild, and currently, the Producers Guild of America. She helped her clients put together such films as "Born on the Fourth of July", "Rainman". "JFK", and many others. Wagner currently resides in Los Angeles with her husband Rick Nicita, Co-chairman and COO of Morgan Creek Productions, and their son Zachary.

Spouse

Trivia

Tom Cruise's producing partner at Cruise/Wagner Productions.

New chief executive of United Artists. [November 2006]

Announced that she will leave United Artists. [August 2008]

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