Mona in Dublin, 1990

Every now and then we stumble across new material that casts fresh light on an aspect of Mona’s life. While preparing for a talk, an internet search brought up a video that neither Bill Hern or I had seen before. It appears to have been filmed in August 1990, less than three years before her untimely death.

The narration of the film is in German and Mona conducts the interview in the same language. Neither Bill or I speak German (offers of translation are welcome!) even so, some interesting points emerge.

Mona was sixty-four when the interview was filmed and what is immediately apparent is how lively and engaging she is. She was clearly in good health and high spirits. The illness that caused her death less than three later was sudden and unexpected – there is certainly no sign here of diminishing vitality.

After a brief introduction, the film opens with Mona at her house in Dublin. Bill and I have visited this house but only seen it from the front, it is an impressive residence in a sturdy and undemonstrative way. The thing that most struck us was that, even over thirty years since she died, her name was still on the front door with that of her husband.

Within moments of the interview starting she bursts into infectious laughter, if only we knew what the question was!

Mona’s Wikipedia entry is riddled with errors (one day we must get round to amending it) including the suggestion that she ‘retired’ when her son was five (so that would have been in 1958) and there is also the comment that an attempted comeback in the 1970s was ‘unsuccessful’. Both comments fully merit the description of ‘nonsense’.  This newly discovered film alone gives the lie to them but there is ample other evidence of Mona’s on-going and multi-faceted show business career which we summarised in our book What About the Princess? The Life and Times of Mona Baptiste.

The film then cuts to Mona performing ‘Es liegt was in der Luft’ (loosely translated as ‘there’s something in the air’) which had been a major hit in Germany with Bully Buhlan in the 1950s. The song could certainly be classified as ‘easy listening’ and, it must be said, is not much to our personal taste, nevertheless the style was hugely popular in Germany and Mona was very good at it. While the music is catchy, Mona’s vocal range was capable of meeting far greater challenges.

Next we catch up with Mona shopping for antiques in Dublin and it is evident that she took care in her selection of pieces to take home as can be seen from shots filmed inside the house.

A brief scene of Mona sitting at a desk ‘writing’ is perhaps the one section of the film that comes across as rather posed and un-natural.

The shots of her walking with her husband, Liam, on the other hand, look entirely natural. We have shared the film with Liam and he remembers it being filmed. It evidently brought back fond memories. He recalls:

I  Remember the shooting of the video. It was shot by a young Austrian who came and stayed for about a week doing lots of sessions in the house and outdoor venues around the city.