Payne grew up in
Kogarah, a southern suburb of Sydney. She was employed as an assistant to Harry Wren, a theatrical agency and theatre director. She then moved overseas to work as a writer, producer and casting agent in the UK and Canada. before setting up Patti Payne Casting, where she worked with an impressive array of American, Canadian and British actors including
Michael Douglas,
Blythe Danner,
John Candy,
Martin Short,
Gilda Radner,
Eugene Levy,
Anthony Perkins,
Stefanie Powers,
Leslie Nielsen,
Martin Sheen, and
William Shatner. Her writing credits include longform projects for
CBS, Universal, and TORSTAR, and include
Captain America, a movie-of-the-week adaptation from the
Stan Lee Marvel Comic Book which was released internationally as a theatrical film. Her best-known work is
For the Term of His Natural Life, a six-hour miniseries which she wrote and produced with
Wilton Schiller, starring
Anthony Perkins and
Colin Friels. Her most recent film is
California Dreaming starring
Lea Thompson,
Patricia Richardson and
Dave Foley, and written and directed by
Linda Voorhees. She is currently producing the music series "Jim J's Jukebox", and is in pre-production on the comedy feature film
No Kava for Johnny based on the book by
John O'Grady. ==References==