Paula Prentiss
American actress
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.
Early life
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.
The public source identifies “Paula Prentiss” as american actress. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Paula, Prentiss and American.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q271458. VIAF identifies the subject as 29732084. The Library of Congress control number is n87921591. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1938, 1960, 1964 and 1965.
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This entry incorporates text from “Paula Prentiss” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.