| Mona Kane | |||||||||||
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| Frances Heflin as Mona Kane | |||||||||||
| All My Children | |||||||||||
| Portrayed by | Frances Heflin (1/5/1970-6/1994) | ||||||||||
| Current status | Former; Regular | ||||||||||
| Duration | 1970-1994 | ||||||||||
| First appearance | January 5, 1970 | ||||||||||
| Last appearance | June 1994 | ||||||||||
| Cause/reason | Died | ||||||||||
| Profile | |||||||||||
| Alias(es) | Mona Tyler (second married name) | ||||||||||
| Gender | Female | ||||||||||
| Cause of death | Peacefully died in sleep | ||||||||||
| Title | President of Heritage Society | ||||||||||
| Residence | Pine Valley, Pennsylvania (at time of death) | ||||||||||
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Mona Kane Tyler (formerly Kane) is a character from the soap opera All My Children, portrayed by the late Frances Heflin from the first episode on January 5, 1970 until her death in June 1994.
Storylines[]
Mona Kane debuts on the show All My Children, as the working mother of Erica Kane and secretary to Dr. Charles Tyler. She divorces her philandering husband, movie director Eric Kane, after he deserts her and nine-year-old Erica. One of the first successful single parents portrayed on daytime television, Mona dedicates her life to raising Erica. But this love and dedication is never enough; initially, Erica blames Mona for her father's desertion.
The other true love in Mona's life is Dr. Charles Tyler, who, in 1970, is married to Phoebe. As Phoebe's relentless badgering of Charles accelerates, he turns to Mona for love and affection. Mona blackmails Phoebe into granting Charles a divorce (one of the grandest gestures she ever makes). After his divorce from Phoebe, he and Mona are married and remain hopelessly in love until his death.
Mona always defends Erica, despite her daughter's consistently questionable choices.
To Erica, however, this love is interference. When Mona is diagnosed with lung cancer, Erica finally realizes how much her mother means to her, and how lonely and empty her life will be without her. Mona recovers.
Mona also dotes upon her granddaughters, Kendall and Bianca and is best friends with Myrtle Fargate.
Mona dies peacefully in her sleep in 1994. Erica, who had been unable to express her emotions, breaks down at the funeral and hurls herself onto her mother's coffin, crying hysterically. When a genuinely heartbroken Kendall arrives to pay her respects, Erica does not believe her daughter's grief is sincere due their fraught history. They argue but Kendall refuses to leave and accidentally bumps into a table holding Mona's photo, breaking the frame. Kendall then leaves, offering her apologies to Erica.
When Kendall leaves to care for her adoptive mother in July 1995, Myrtle tells Kendall that Mona loved her. Kendall tells Myrtle she loved her grandmother too. Before Kendall leaves for Florida, she and Erica reconcile. Erica tells Kendall that her mother had always pushed her to give her daughter another chance.