After graduating from Bolles High School in Jacksonville, Florida, Ashby took a degree in psychology and business administration at Fort Lewis College in Durango in the state of Colorado, and then moved to New York where he took drama classes in the Neighborhood Playhouse. Early in his career he took part in the soap opera Loving, and an episode of MacGyver, also got a small role in the 1990 movie Mr. & Mrs. Bridge with Paul Newman and again in 1990 he starred in the independent film The queen of hell alongside Karen Black.
