Lewis ready for 2nd chance
November 10, 2015
Jean Babin
November 11, 2015
An active thespian who spent a lifetime serving the Thibodaux Playhouse, a lifelong musician who loved to tell stories in both French and English, and a cultural ambassador who strove to preserve the Cajun culture. Melvyn Paul Baudoin died at 77 on Oct. 25, 2015.
Melvyn Paul Baudoin was a born performer who treasured his Cajun heritage throughout his life. Whether it was in song, spoken or printed words, or on stage, he lived to tell stories.
Born to Elrena and Merille F. Baudoin on Oct. 27, 1937, he always had a propensity toward music.
His parents spoke to him in Cajun French and his mother had him sing for company from the time he was little. When he was 12, his grandfather, Eugene Foret, bought Melvyn his first guitar and his brother-in-law, Alton Sampey, gave him lessons.
Melvyn began his formal music education with brass when he was in middle school. It was then that he picked up the trombone in the school band.
In 1960, he met the many loves of his life at the Thibodaux Playhouse. That is the year the theater was founded, and Melvyn was one of the first people to buy season tickets. It was there that he met his lifelong best friend, Martha Hodnett, who was only a few years younger than him. The two teens were both only becoming indoctrinated to the thespian life, both helping to set up and decorate the sets, getting to know one another, each with a paint roller in-hand.
Martha said during her eulogy for Melvyn that she first knew him as “Red,” a name he got for the “crown of strawberry curls atop his head.”
The Thibodaux Playhouse is also where he met his wife of 24 years, Martha “Marty” Ayo. Her mother introduced them when they went to a play in which he performed, although “Red” married twice before the two finally took their vows.
Melvyn first appeared on stage in the role of “Mookie” in “Dirty Works at the Crossroads” in 1967.
He was also first elected to the board that year, but was a lifelong member until 2004. In that span, Melvyn mentored many less experienced actors and actresses, directed 19 plays and served as president of the board for 13 years.
Melvyn was honored as “Board Member Emeritus” of the Thibodaux Playhouse in 2004.
“When we found out that he passed away, it was like a dear, old friend or a member of the family had passed,” said Roger Hernadez, current president of the Thibodaux Playhouse.
But Melvyn’s first love was always music. After high school, he earned a bachelor’s degree in music education from Louisiana State University. He later taught at Thibodaux High School.
Melvyn never stopped producing music, though. He sang in Cajun French and English and wrote songs in both. He translated English songs into French. He played in numerous bands throughout the Louisiana south. He played trombone, guitar and sang. He was even a jazz trombonist and vocalist in the Bayou Dixieland Band for almost 20 years.
In his early twenties, he began his entrepreneurial endeavors as well. In 1959, he started the Lafourche Parish Press, a weekly tabloid newspaper that he published and edited. A couple years later he sold that paper and began publishing and editing the Post-News, also a weekly tabloid newspaper covering parish news.
In 1965, he sold that paper and started Post-News Printing and Office Supplies, where he printed the paper and, as the name suggests, sold office supplies.
Melvyn also appreciated painting, so 10 years later he sold the print shop and started Mel’s Frame Gallery & Art Supplies. Fifteen years later, in 1990, it morphed into Mel’s Custom Framing and Cajun Art Gallery. That was around the time he married Marty, who is a retired attorney and a painter.
Also in 1990, Melvyn began playing the jazz trombone and singing for the Bayou Dixieland Band. Ten years later, he started working as a bilingual tour guide at Laura and Oak Alley plantations in Vacherie, La.
He loved telling stories and cherished doing so in French and English song to the local school children that went on field trips to the Jubilee of Humanities Festival held before the annual Louisiana Swamp Stomp Festival at Nicholls State University.
He was also an ambassador for the Bayou Lafourche Area Convention & Visitors Bureau and served as the organization’s Chairman of the Board as recently as 2014. He actually completed translating a French version of the driving tour of the parish last year that will be published in 2016.
“He was so cultural and civic minded,” Marty said.
He and Marty hosted cultural exchange travelers at their home in Raceland as part of the Thibodaux-Loudun Twinning Association. She would cook and he would cajole them with French songs and stories.
The program entails a group from Loudun, France, once and a reciprocal trip of travelers from Thibodaux two years later. He and his friend Martha Hodnett were among those who travelled to the ancient town in the west-central region of France. The area south of the town is where many Acadians originally came from.
They were guests of a French couple who owned a goat farm. One night the couple brought them to the local club. There, anyone could perform. Mel brought his guitar and performed songs in both English and French. The crowd loved him, Martha recalled. They especially loved his French version of “What a Wonderful World” by Louis Armstrong.
“He took the stage that night and sang in English and in French,” she said. “He brought the house down.”
Melvyn Paul Baudoin was a born performer who directed 19 plays at the Thibodaux Playhouse and even served as the organization’s president for 13. Mr. Baudoin died at 77 on Oct. 25, 2015.
