Paula Wagner

Wagner was born Paula Sue Kauffman in Youngstown, Ohio. Her mother, Sue Anna (née Shofstall), was a news magazine editor from Oklahoma, and her father, Edmund Jamison "Ned" Kauffman, Jr., was a business owner. While in Youngstown, Wagner frequently performed at the local playhouse. She received her BFA from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she currently sits on the board of trustees.

Early career

In her early career in New York, Wagner played several ensemble parts in the 1971 stage production of Lenny. Some of her additional credits include the role of Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream at Yale Repertory Theatre as well as Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at the Cleveland Play House. Her first marriage, to set designer Robin Wagner, brought her into the industry's A-list circles; she was present when director Michael Bennett shared ideas with Robin for A Chorus Line".

Agent and film producer

After her work on the stage, Wagner became a talent agent at the boutique talent agency, Susan Smith and Associates in Los Angeles. Subsequently, Wagner was hired in the talent department at Creative Artists Agency (CAA) in Los Angeles, where she signed and represented Tom Cruise. In July 1992, after representing Cruise for eleven years, she and Cruise co-founded the independent film production company Cruise/Wagner Productions. For the next fourteen years, Wagner and Cruise produced a wide range of films that earned numerous awards and widespread critical praise, and were global box office successes. The first film released under the C/W Productions banner was the international hit Mission: Impossible, the success of which brought the company the 1997 Producers Guild of America's Nova Award for Most Promising Producers in Theatrical Motion Pictures.

In addition to the two subsequent films in the Mission: Impossible film series (Mission: Impossible 2 and Mission: Impossible III), C/W Productions went on to produce such films as The Others, The Last Samurai, Vanilla Sky, Without Limits, Shattered Glass, Narc, Elizabethtown, and Ask the Dust, as well as Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds (which Wagner executive produced). In all, films produced by C/W Productions earned more than $2.9 billion in worldwide box office receipts.

Wagner continues to work as a film producer and studio executive, developing films, theatre, and television through her company Chestnut Ridge Productions.

Through Chestnut Ridge Productions, her most recent film was Marshall, starring Chadwick Boseman, Josh Gad, Kate Hudson, and Sterling K. Brown; a story of a true law case early in the career of Thurgood Marshall. The movie was critically acclaimed and was nominated for one Academy Award.

Wagner is married to Rick Nicita, CEO of management and production company RP Media.