THE JAZZ BARONESS

An 82-minute documentary

Written, Produced and Directed by Hannah Rothschild
With Helen Mirren as voice of the Baroness

I found her in my family tree, an unknown great-aunt, the Baroness Pannonica
Rothschild. Who is she, I asked my father Jacob Rothschild? “She lives in New
York,” but he didn’t know anymore. Then there were the whispers- she liked black
men- she flew Lancaster bombers in the war- junkie Charlie Parker died in her
apartment- she abandoned her five children but lives with 306 cats- twenty great
songs were written for her- she raced Miles Davis down Fifth Avenue.

Everyone agreed on one thing: her great love, the man with whom she lived for ten
years, for whom she went to prison, was the resolutely individual high priest of
bebop, Thelonious Monk.

This documentary feature follows my ten-year search to solve the puzzle of
Pannonica told by those members of my family that will talk and the surviving
musicians, many who don’t normally talk such as Sonny Rollins, Clint Eastwood,
Miriam Rothschild, Quincy Jones, The Duchess of Devonshire and Thelonious
Monk’s son Toot. Oscar winner Helen Mirren reads Nica’s writings and brings alive
the Baroness’s unique style and voice.

The settings range from stately homes where she was born to the tiny house in New
Jersey where she died, via the streets of Harlem, the battlefields of Africa and the gas
chambers of Auschwitz, the prison in Delaware and the smartest hotels on Fifth
Avenue. Threading contemporary footage with private and period archive and
unreleased recordings, it tells the story of a century via a portrait of an heiress trained
only for marriage who became a pioneering freedom fighter, feminist and social
activist.

Copyright Clandestine Films Ltd for BBC Storyville