New York
How ‘Operation Mincemeat’ Revealed a Family’s World War II Secrets

When William Leggatt was at work as a renewal energy developer a couple of summers ago, he received a bizarre email from a superfan of “Operation Mincemeat,” a British musical about a wacky World War II intelligence plot.
As the show outlines, the operation involved British spies dressing a corpse as a military officer, stuffing a briefcase with fake letters implying an imminent invasion of Sardinia, and then dumping the corpse and documents at sea to be discovered by the Nazis.
So the email contained a simple question: Was William a distant relative of Hester Leggatt, a prim secretary who appears in the musical and played a key role in the plot?
The show’s superfans, who meet in an online forum and are known as Mincefluencers, believed that Hester was involved in writing fake love letters that officials planted on the body to help make the plot believable — and that she deserved to be publicly honored. But William Leggatt had no idea what the email was talking about.
It was only when he started talking to family members who were closer to the great-aunt and, later, reading a document sent by the Mincefluencers, that he realized they were right. In the end, he recalled in a recent interview, the musical “opened a whole side to my family I’d never known.”
Since debuting in London in 2019, “Operation Mincemeat,” which opened on Broadway last week at the Golden Theater, has won plaudits for turning wartime espionage into a satirical musical. For William Leggatt and other descendants of the real life figures depicted onstage, it has also unearthed family secrets and brought newfound appreciation for their forebears.
In the musical, Hester Leggatt (Jak Malone, one of five cast members playing numerous parts) is depicted as an unemotional prude until she takes on the task of writing the love letters and sings a heart-wrenching showstopper called “Dear Bill.”
World War II aficionados had been aware that a secretary called Hester had written the romantic notes, potentially with help from others, since the journalist Ben Macintyre named her in an acclaimed 2010 history. But a slight discrepancy in the spelling of her surname meant that when the musical opened, the real Hester remained largely a mystery.
Once the Mincefluencers discovered the correct spelling, they set about finding Hester Leggatt’s descendants and eventually produced a 50-page document about her life, which even detailed a play that she performed in at school. The superfans also got MI5, Britain’s domestic security service, to confirm that a Hester Leggatt had worked for the service during the war.
William Leggatt said he never met his great-aunt, who died in 1995, and knew nothing of that background before receiving the email.
It was “pretty annoying,” he added, to find out decades after her death that she had played a role in a famous World War II plot because, he said, he would have loved to have quizzed her about it. Still, he said: “I don’t think she told even those close to her. She kept it pretty bloody secret her whole life.”
For other descendants of the Operational Mincemeat spies, the musical has led them to delve more into their family history or changed their perceptions of long-lost relatives.
Susie Pugh, a granddaughter of John Bevan, the official who approved the plot, said in an interview that attending the musical had rounded out her image of a man who died when she was 15. She had known him as an affectionate grandfather, she said, yet onstage he was “confident, strident” and ordering spies around.
Jessica Baldrian, a granddaughter of Charles Cholmondeley, another spy, said that her family had chatted regularly about him since seeing the show. She said it got some things wrong, including portraying him as a newt-obsessed nerd (the family could find no evidence of his amphibian fancying). But, she added, it was a musical: “You don’t expect it to be accurate.” Like many of the spy descendants, Baldrian traveled from Britain for the recent Broadway opening to see her grandfather portrayed on the New York stage.
One descendant has even become a Mincefluencer himself.
Saul Montagu said he had long known that his great-grandfather Ewen Montagu had masterminded the operation, not just because Montagu wrote a 1953 book about it, called “The Man Who Never Was.” The walls of the family’s home in Oxford also include numerous photographs, a painting and a caricature of Montagu, one of which was signed by Winston Churchill in gratitude for his service.
But Saul Montagu said that as a teenager he had thought little about his great-grandfather, who died in 1985.
That changed in January 2020 after a family outing to see the musical. He began delving into his great-grandfather’s life, first reading his book and then his unpublished autobiography and a handwritten diary from a year at Harvard in which he confessed to spending more time dancing and sourcing contraband liquor than studying.
As Saul Montagu’s fandom for the musical grew, he recalled, he joined the main online Mincefluencers group and answered questions about his great-grandfather.
The research, Montagu said, “humanized” his great-grandfather, making him far more than simply a cool tale to tell friends about. Now, he added, he has seen the musical 13 times, and even joked with Natasha Hodgson, the actor who plays his ancestor, about how they were “family.”
In interviews, six descendants of the characters said they loved the show, though not all were convinced that their ancestors would agree.
William Leggatt said of his great-aunt Hester, “for her contribution to finally be recognized, I’m sure she’d have been happy with that.” But if she discovered that a man was portraying her on Broadway, he said, “there’d have been some spluttering.”

New York
Read the Ruling on the Judgment Against Trump in the E. Jean Carroll Case

Case: 24-644, 09/08/2025, DktEntry: 134.1, Page 28 of 70
statements at issue in this case were made three years earlier than the statement
in Carroll II, the statements were identical in material respects because both
accused Carroll of fabricating the sexual assault allegations for improper
purposes. Compare supra pp. 6-8 (June 2019 statements), with supra pp. 13-14 (October 2022 statement). 14
The truth or falsity of Trump’s statements in both 2019 and 2022
turned on whether Carroll was lying, that is, whether Trump sexually assaulted Carroll in 1996, irrespective of the specific sexual act committed. 15 The jury in
14
–
For example, in the 2022 statement which the Carroll II jury determined to be false — Trump stated, among other things: “I have no idea who [E. Jean Carroll] is.” Carroll, 690 F. Supp. 3d at 401. In the June 21, 2019 statement at issue here, Trump said: “I’ve never met this person in my life.” App’x at 1887. Moreover, in the 2022 statement, Trump said: “She completely made up a story that I met her . . . and, within minutes, ‘swooned’ her. It is a Hoax and a lie,” “it never happened,” and “for the record, E. Jean Carroll is not telling the truth, is a woman who I had nothing to do with, didn’t know, and would have no interest in knowing her if I ever had the chance.” Supp. App’x at 108. In the June 21, 2019 statement, Trump said: “Shame on those who make up false stories of assault to try to get publicity for themselves,” “I would like to thank Bergdorf Goodman for confirming that they have no video footage of any such incident, because it never happened,” and “[f]alse accusations diminish the severity of real assault.” App’x at 1887.
15
In other words, the application of issue preclusion to the falsity element is proper because Trump’s 2019 and 2022 statements did not turn on the specific sexual act he committed. He did not deny, for example, digital penetration specifically. In all statements, he denied any sexual assault, full stop. The Carroll II jury found Trump’s 2022 statement to be false because it found that he sexually abused Carroll. See Tannerite Sports, LLC v. NBCUniversal News Grp., a division of NBCUniversal Media, LLC, 864 F.3d 236, 242 (2d Cir. 2017) (Under New York law, “to satisfy the falsity element of a
28
New York
13 Off Broadway Shows to See in September

‘The Wild Duck’
Henrik Ibsen’s searing dissections of bourgeois hypocrisies appear to be in sync with our angry times. The Norwegian playwright is even getting high-profile movie adaptations, with the Tessa Thompson-starring “Hedda” dropping in October. In New York, Simon Godwin’s production of this semi-obscure effort from 1884, about a family’s secrets coming to light, follows recent revivals of “An Enemy of the People,” “A Doll’s House” and “Ghosts.” (Through Sept. 28, Theater for a New Audience)
‘Mexodus’
In their hip-hop musical, Nygel D. Robinson and Brian Quijada portray an enslaved man and the sharecropper-turned-soldier he meets at the Rio Grande. The story looks at a different kind of Underground Railroad while also connecting to our current turbulence with an era-transcending message of solidarity. David Mendizábal directs the two-man show, which is part of Audible Theater’s series. (Sept. 9-Oct. 11, Minetta Lane Theater)
The Small Rooms Where It Happens
Grier Mathiot and Billy McEntee’s lovely “The Voices in Your Head” was staged for about 20 people at a time in a storefront church last year. McEntee’s “Slanted Floors” goes even smaller: The actors Kyle Beltran and Adam Chanler-Berat portray a couple living out their domesticity under the watch of five audience members in a Brooklyn apartment. (Sept. 9-Oct. 10, Slanted Floors Play).
A collaboration between Hansol Jung (“Wolf Play”) and the collective The Pack, co-directed by Jung and Dustin Wills, “Last Call, a Play with Cocktails” takes place in various New York City apartments, so the audience size varies depending on where the show lands on any given day. One constant: There will be drinks. (Sept. 19-Oct. 13, En Garde Arts)
‘Family’
Alec Duffy’s original staging of “Family,” an early work by the playwright-turned-filmmaker Celine Song, took place in a Brooklyn apartment for audiences of about 30. The production — outré, operatically gothic, near-feral at times — is returning for an encore run, but in a more traditional theatrical space. Let’s see how Duffy recalibrates the show. (Sept. 12-28, La MaMa)
‘The Essentialisn’t’
“Can you be Black and not perform?” Such is the question driving Eisa Davis’s new piece, in which she leads a cast of four. A Pulitzer Prize finalist for her haunting play “Bulrusher” and the co-creator of the concept album “Warriors” with Lin-Manuel Miranda, Davis remains a frustratingly underrecognized writer and performer with a lyrical, fiercely poetic voice all her own. Here is an opportunity to watch her confront and subvert the expectations placed on Black artists. (Sept. 10-28; Here Arts Center)
‘The Other Americans’
John Leguizamo’s stage career is paved with solo shows, sometimes autobiographical, in which he brings to life a gallery of characters. At first glance it looks as if his latest piece might be more of the same since it involves a Colombian American New Yorker, like the writer-performer himself. But while Leguizamo does play that central character, Nelson, he is far from alone onstage: “The Other Americans,” directed by Ruben Santiago-Hudson, is a family drama with an actual cast — it’ll be exciting to watch Leguizamo jostle with costars. (Sept. 11-Oct. 19, Public Theater)
‘Caroline’
Chloë Grace Moretz was only 17 when she starred in Scott Z. Burns’s “The Library” at the Public Theater, in 2014, but her screen career was already buzzing. Still, few expected that it would take over a decade for Moretz to return to the New York stage. At long last here she is again, under the direction of the ever-reliable David Cromer (whose recent credits include “Dead Outlaw” and “Good Night, and Good Luck”). The three characters in Preston Max Allen’s new play are all members of one family, with Moretz in the middle as the daughter of the character played by Amy Landecker (“Transparent”) and the mother of young Caroline (River Lipe-Smith). (Sept. 12-Oct. 19, MCC Theater)
‘Are the Bennet Girls OK?’
After its successful country musical “Music City” last year, the Bedlam company returns to one of its foundational authors: Jane Austen (Kate Hamill’s adaptation of “Sense and Sensibility” was an early Bedlam hit in 2014). Now Emily Breeze’s new take on “Pride and Prejudice” looks like it’s going to have fun with the Regency superstar’s best-seller: “I haven’t reread the source material since I skimmed it in high school,” Breeze claims. (Sept. 14-Oct. 19, West End Theater)
‘When the Hurlyburly’s Done’
After dedicating a decade to his “Rhinebeck Panorama” project, which includes the Apple, Gabriel and Michael family cycles, the writer-director Richard Nelson set out for war-torn Kyiv to work with the local Theater on Podil on a staging of his 2008 play “Conversations in Tusculum.” So inspired was he by the experience that he wrote the company this piece, about Ukrainian actors performing “Macbeth” in 1920. The resulting production (in Ukrainian with English supertitles) settles at Nelson’s frequent artistic home, the Public Theater, for a short run. (Sept. 16-21, Public Theater)
‘Weather Girl’
These days weather reporters like Stacey (Julia McDermott) are called upon to deliver apocalyptic accounts of a world either drowning in floods or bursting into flames along with their forecasts. Written by Brian Watkins (the creator of the time-travel Western series “Outer Range”), this solo play straddles satire and warning. (Sept. 16-Oct. 12, St. Ann’s Warehouse)
‘And Then We Were No More’
The most intriguing pairing this month may well be that of Elizabeth Marvel and Tim Blake Nelson. They are not onstage together, though: Marvel stars in this new play by Nelson, who somehow finds time to write (he also has a novel, “Superhero,” coming out in December) in between gigs as an ur-character actor (next up: the film “Bang Bang” and the series “The Lowdown”). Marvel plays a lawyer in a near-future society where the justice system is even more out of whack than our current one. (Sept. 19-Nov. 2, La MaMa)
‘Torera’
The title character of Monet Hurst-Mendoza’s play is a young Mexican woman, portrayed by Jacqueline Guillén, who yearns to make a space for herself in bullfighting — which the WP Theater’s site noncommittally refers to as “a controversial practice that we neither condemn nor condone.” Tatiana Pandiani choreographs and directs. (Sept. 20-Oct. 19, WP Theater)
‘Crooked Cross’
Sally Carson’s play premiered in Britain in 1935 and takes place just a couple of years earlier, in Germany — you can guess what the title refers to. The show, based on Carson’s own novel, presciently tracks the rise of Nazism through the prism of a divided Bavarian family. (Sept. 20-Nov. 1, Mint Theater)
‘All Right. Good Night.’
N.Y.U. Skirball plays a vital role in the New York cultural ecosystem by programming radical theatermakers from around the world, albeit for blink-and-you’ll-miss-them runs. Such is the case with this piece by the experimental German company Rimini Protokoll (“Remote New York”) in which Helgard Haug intertwines the disappearance of a Malaysia Airlines flight in 2014 with her father’s slide into dementia. Bonus: a live score by the exquisite Berlin-based musician Barbara Morgenstern and Zafraan Ensemble. (Sept. 25-27, N.Y.U. Skirball)
New York
Take a Closer Look at These ‘Great’ New York City Trees

Species Magnolia grandiflora
In 1968, this magnolia tree, then over 40 feet tall, was supposed to be cut down to make way for an apartment complex. Hattie Carthan jumped into action. Ms. Carthan, an environmentalist and activist in the Black community, moved to Brooklyn in 1928 and had a deep love for trees. In 1966, she founded the Bedford-Stuyvesant Beautification Committee, which planted more than 1,500 trees and also taught youth groups about caring for them — not a popular mission at the time. “When I first suggested that we buy trees, I almost got thrown out of the block association,” Ms. Carthan told The New York Times in 1975. “They said, ‘Oh, trees make leaves and you have to sweep.’”
Ms. Carthan was so determined to save the magnolia on Lafayette Avenue, which was estimated to have been planted in about 1885, that she campaigned for it to be designated by the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission as a living landmark — and won. Today it is the sole remaining landmark tree in New York City.
In 1972, Ms. Carthan created the Magnolia Tree Earth Center, which, despite her death in 1984, continues to educate young people about environmental issues. The center is facing financial hardship, but there is hope that it will be revitalized, said Wayne Devonish, the chairman of its board. “We need to embrace all that it represents in terms of being like a little urban oasis, smack dab in central Brooklyn,” he said. “If we show the tree, and the center, love, hopefully there’s another good 100 — or 200 — years.”
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