His mother was a talented pianist and singer: Dame Nellie Melba had offered to take her to England to join her opera company, but on condition that she remained single.
[8] Ashton later confessed that his "real love" remained music, and he only applied himself to the craft of make-up, "an occupation that I did not really enjoy", to ensure he had a stable means of earning a living "[h]aving tasted the sadness of unemployment" while in Australia.
[8] During that time he worked in a secret department, based in the Natural History Museum and headed by Charles Fraser-Smith, whose task was to create concealed weapons and gadgets – "exploding fountain pens and umbrellas which fired poison darts" as Ashton recalled – for use by undercover operatives serving behind enemy lines in occupied Europe.
"[9] In December 1947, Ashton joined Benjamin Britten's English Opera Group, understudying Peter Pears and creating the role of the Mayor in Albert Herring.
Invited to work with Orson Welles in Madrid for the film Mr. Arkadin, Ashton was on location when he received a message that English Opera Group wanted him to take part in a revival of Albert Herring.
[14] However he would always fondly remember his singing career: "Nothing can compare with the thrill of appearing before a great gathering, of hearing the thunder of the applause delivered to a sincere artist," he wrote.
[19][n 1] Ashton's main effort on that film, to transform a Great Dane into the title character, was barely a success, the result only appearing briefly in the final cut.
His next film, The Man Who Could Cheat Death (1959), involved transforming Anton Diffring into "a living corpse": "To produce all the ravages of time and debauchery, I felt that the final effect should be a cocktail of fatal diseases spreading rapidly across his body.
[25] Hearing in advance that Hammer were planning to make Curse of the Werewolf, he obtained a copy of the script and spent weeks in preparation before he was approached by Keys to undertake the job.
"[27] Through Oliver Reed, Ashton met the Australian dental surgeon Phil Rasmussen, who gave useful advice about creating fangs for the werewolf make-up; so started a professional relationship which was to continue in several subsequent films.