Paton was described as a "natural comic" and one of the "legends of the local stage" of San Francisco. She is a veteran of the American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.), and also one of A.C.T.'s leading actresses in its first few seasons. After leaving A.C.T. in the early 1970s, Paton and her husband founded and ran the Berkeley Stage Company for a number of years.

Since then, she and her husband, theatre director Robert Goldsby, moved to Malibu, CA, where they lived until 2015. Paton appeared in 38 films and over 50 TV series. She also continued her decades-long run of regional theatre work across the country, including her 2014 role in the Broadway play, Harvey.