1 minute read
MENDEZ CHIEF OF
Disguise
Do you love spy novels? Enjoy watching spy movies that get your pulse racing? Tulsa Town Hall’s next visitor to the Chapman Stage, Jonna Mendez, lived those novels and movies. Remember a li le movie by the name of Argo? It’s a true story about something her husband actually did.
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While many kids grow up dreaming about being James Bond, Mendez never had that dream. She ended up in the world of espionage completely by accident. Three days before her marriage to someone she believed to be an American businessman living in Germany, he suddenly told her he wasn’t who she thought he was; he was a CIA agent.
Mendez le the banking job she had been at to work as a secretary at what was essentially the American version of James Bond’s Q Branch headquarters. Eventually ge ing bored of the secretarial life, Mendez tried to leave the CIA for something more interesting and exciting. That was until her boss told the budding photographer that she could do photography for the CIA. And she did.
Photography for the CIA led Mendez down a life path that would see her eventually become the CIA’s Master of Disguise. She’s been all over the world, pu ing her life in danger for 27 years.
Though Mendez has been retired for many years, the spy business has continued to call her back. First, she and her husband were asked to help with a new spy museum in Washington, D.C. Since then, she has been giving speeches and talks all over about her incredible life.
When she comes to Tulsa, she’ll be sharing stories like using dead rats to leave important things behind for someone else to come pick up later.
She will discuss moments when she thought her career might take her life, like when a gun-toting terrorist knowingly looked her dead in the eyes when she was undercover. She will let us in on the magic behind making an agent disappear in an instant.
Come see this master of illusion unravel the secrets and mystique of the undercover world.
JONNA MENDEZ
CIA’s Former Chief of Disguise: Magic Solutions
April 28, 10:30 a.m.
Chapman Music Hall
