Albion native releases award-winning short documentary for free on YouTube

Photos provided by Mary Ellen Ashley with permission: Mary Ellen Ashley has enjoyed a long career in show business. Albion native Patrick Riviere produced a documentary about her life, “Just a Broadway Baby: Mary Ellen Ashley.”

Press Release, Patrick Riviere

The award-winning short documentary film about the life and career of Mary Ellen Ashley (Broadway: The Innocent Voyage, Annie Get Your Gun with Ethel Merman and Yentl) is now available to screen on YouTube.

After a long film festival circuit run in which the 24-minute film was nominated at 14 festivals, won eight awards including five Best Documentary Short Awards (Art of Brooklyn, Chain Film Festival, Oregon Documentary Film Festival, Upstate NY Film Festival and New York Long Island Film Festival), Just a Broadway Baby: Mary Ellen Ashley is now available on YouTube. The film was also invited to be part of the permanent archives at New York Public Library for the Performing Arts (TOFT).

Patrick Riviere, an Albion native and Niagara University graduate, interviews Mary Ellen Ashley.

“We had been talking to folks at BroadwayHD and several other cable outlets but decided anyone and everyone who wants to see the film should be able to see it easily for free,” said Mary Ellen from her home in Los Angeles where she recently tap danced on Let’s Make a Deal and had Wayne Brady in stitches and is now featured in the film, Thump, which recently screened at the prestigious Raindance Film Festival.

The short documentary, directed by award-winning actor, playwright and filmmaker Patrick Riviere, follows Mary Ellen’s storied career from her Broadway debut in An Innocent Voyage at the age of seven, to being in the original cast of Annie Get Your Gun and growing up with the show for its entire run and then going on to star in radio and early television (cast as the Tootsie Roll Sweetheart on The Tootsie Hippodrome TV show).

She then opened for stars in Vegas and ultimately performing some of the biggest roles in the musical theater canon in National and International Tours, Off-Broadway and the best known regional theaters in the country from Maine State Music Theatre and Walnut Street Theater, to Paper Mill Playhouse and the Burt Reynolds Dinner Theatre, to ArtPark (where she starred as Dolly Levi in Hello Dolly and also graced the ArtPark stage in Carousel and George M!) and American Musical Theatre of San Jose to name a few. And that includes starring in over 12 productions of Hello Dolly!

“It is extraordinary that Mary Ellen is 89 and still going strong,” Riviere said. “She is a shining example of what it means to persevere and continue to share your light with others. We need that now, more than ever. And releasing this film so that everyone can see her positivity and infectious joy and energy is the icing on the cake to the success we’ve achieved with my freshman film.”

Riviere himself has had a successful career on the stage and in front of the camera (which began at Albion High School and continued on at Niagara University and ArtPark) and he most recently filmed a supporting role in the upcoming feature film Pointing Fingers, a first of its kind to star two minimally verbal autistic actors.

Indie Shorts Magazine had this to say about the film: “Ashley is instantly likeable. Her flair for drama blends with humour to produce excellent theatricality as she recounts the story of how she got her start. “Picket Fences”, the sequence that delves into a conflict between career and parenting, best showcases the film’s ability to throw in lower tones into the narrative’s colorful carousel and have it be richer for it.”

You can see the film by following the link: https://youtu.be/zjVsjCpdqpw.

Mary Ellen Ashley recently appeared on Let’s Make a Deal to the amusement of host Wayne Brady.