Dina Eastwood

She co-hosted the hidden camera television series Candid Camera (2001–2004) and starred in E!'s reality television series Mrs. Eastwood & Company (2012), which chronicled her life.

Dina Marie Ruiz was born in Castro Valley, California, the daughter of Michael Ruiz, a Math Teacher at Mission San Jose High School and Wrestling Coach, who had been adopted by a Spanish/Puerto Rican couple as an infant in the Kalihi neighborhood of Honolulu. Michael Ruiz's biological mother, Lilian, was Hawaiian and Japanese and his biological father, Marcus Grant, was African American and Native Hawaiian. her mother was Mary Lou Ruiz and is of German, Irish, and English descent. Michael and Mary were 19 and 21 years old when they had Dina. Dina grew up in Fremont, California, with her father teaching school in Fresno.

After graduating from Mission San Jose High School in Fremont, she attended several colleges beginning with Ohlone College, a community college in her hometown, in 1983. While a student at Ohlone, she anchored Newsline for Ohlone College Television. She briefly attended Arizona State University in Tempe, and in 1988, graduated from San Francisco State University with a Bachelor's degree in Broadcast Communications. In 2017, she earned a master's degree in creative writing from San Jose State University.