Paula Abdul was born in San Francisco, California, on June 19, 1963. Abdul was born into a family of mixed heritage: her father is Syrian and her mother is Canadian, with Russian and Ukrainian ancestry. Throughout high school in Van Nuys, California, Paula was a strong student and was active in cheerleading and dancing. Those experiences helped her break into the world of professional dancing when she was chosen as Los Angeles Lakers cheerleader in college. “I was in to choreography before I knew what it was,” she explained to Ebony magazine in 1990. “That’s all I wanted to do since I was a little kid watching Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly movies.” Her first big break came when she was hired by the Jackson 5 to choreograph their video for “Torture.” She used the money made from choreography to record her first demo of “Forever Your Girl,” which was later expanded into a number one hit album. Abdul would go on to have a string of hits, including “Cold Hearted” and “Opposites Attract,” before becoming one of the judges for the mega-popular TV singing competition “American Idol.”