Paula Prentiss

About

Paula Prentiss (née Ragusa; born March 4, 1938) is an American actress. She is best known for her film roles in Where the Boys Are (1960), Man’s Favorite Sport? (1964), What’s New Pussycat? (1965), Catch-22 (1970), The Parallax View (1974), and The Stepford Wives (1975).
From 1967 to 1968, Prentiss co-starred with her husband Richard Benjamin in the CBS sitcom He & She, for which she received a nomination for Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series.

Prentiss was born Paula Ragusa in San Antonio, Texas, the elder daughter of Paulene (née Gardner) and Thomas J. Ragusa, a social sciences professor at San Antonio’s University of the Incarnate Word. Her father was of Sicilian descent, and Prentiss was raised Roman Catholic. She had a younger sister, Ann Prentiss, who was also an actress.
Before high school, Paula, who grew to 5 ft 10 in (1.78 m), was always the tallest person in class. She attended Lamar High School in Houston. After high school, she was a pre-med student at Randolph-Macon Women’s College, but transferred to Northwestern University during her junior year after taking a summer course in theater arts at Northwestern, deciding to…