A native of the movie capital, Mary Mitchel (real name: Mary Dingman) began acting on stage while attending UCLA. Quickly acquiring an agent, she segued into early 1960s TV and movies, among them the Irish-made Dementia 13 (1963), in which she appeared with her real-life husband Bart Patton . (The two had attended UCLA with Dementia 13's 23-year-old writer-director Francis Ford Coppola .) When her acting career later stalled, Mitchel sought jobs behind the scenes, working in different capacities on a variety of motion pictures, many of them Coppola productions ( The Godfather (1972), Apocalypse Now (1979), Bram Stoker 's Dracula (1992), and more). Her son Tyler Patton is a set dresser/property master/actor.

Sister of Tony Dingman .Interviewed in "Earth vs. the Sci-Fi Filmmakers" by Tom Weaver (McFarland, 2005).Mother, with Bart Patton , of son Tyler Patton .