She was born in Paris, daughter of the American operatic soprano Emma Nevada and her English husband Raymond Palmer.
Her voice was light and agile, and her mother trained her to be a coloratura soprano, although Sir Thomas Beecham thought this was a mistake and she should have been a mezzo-soprano instead.
[1] The New York Times reported that her mother's friends, Adelina Patti and Mary Garden travelled all the way to Rome just to attend Mignon's debut.
"[1] Her other roles in London included Olympia in Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann, Zerlina in Mozart's Don Giovanni, and Marguerite in Gounod's Faust.
[1] In 1938 Mignon Nevada made a recording of "Le Soir", a song by Ambroise Thomas which had been given its premiere by her mother.