Talk:George Smiley

Early life
There was a point in Smiley's People where, whilst reminiscing, it says he "entered the Black Forest of his German childhood" or something to that effect, in the middle of the book during his search for Otto Leipzig. Is this entirely metaphorical, or can we assume he spent some time growing up in Germany, which would explain, in part, his considerable command of the language? 50.158.229.206 (talk) 05:09, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Question
As I recall, Smiley personally killed the bad guy at the end of the very first LeCarre novel, written long before he became famous.Hayford Peirce 23:00, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Year of Call for the Dead
In the description of Call for the Dead I just changed "about 1960" to "in 1961" based on the text referring to "Wednesday January 4." Alternate years would be 1950 and 1956. I chose 1961 as it was closest to the original text here. However either of the other two years are equally plausible. Comments? — Preceding unsigned comment added by MichaelRpdx (talk • contribs) 23:49, 1 November 2014 (UTC)
 * See Talk:Call for the Dead for a previous discussion of the issue. Opera hat (talk) 21:43, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Smiley/Guiness
If I recall correctly, in interviews on the Smiley DVDs Le Carré said that Alex Guiness essentially took the character over - that his portrayal of Smiley was so good that Le Carré himself started writing the character (in later books) to reflect the Guiness version of Smiley.

I believe that he said that that was part of the reason that he didn't didn't use the character in later years as much as he'd originally planned. PMaranci 17:26, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Haydon's codename
I remember that there was something about suits being charged to Smiley's account by Ann, but I don't recall anything about that being the reason Haydon gets named Tailor. Can someone please confirm? --Wspencer11 (talk to me...) 11:35, 21 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Seems unlikely -- you are more or less suggesting that that rather personal and private information was somehow made known to Control? Who would have told him: George Smiley? Lady Ann? or Haydon himself? No, I find that very difficult to believe. (By the way, are those bills not for a later infatuation?) I vaguely remember the BBC radio dramatization said something about the code name list being in order of seniority (with the exception of Smiley, who should have appeared somewhere at the head, but was added very late when the list was already fixed): that seems as good explanation as any.Athulin (talk) 19:47, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

a) The suits were not for Haydon, that was someone else. Haydon has his own money. b) There's no reason for any of the code names, it's just the order of the rhyme, excluding words which sound too similar. A code name would be pointless if it identified who it referred to. BearAllen (talk) 23:25, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Guillem
I have changed this sentence "(In the television adaptations of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy Guillam, played by Michael Jayston, is portrayed as a relatively young character, albeit in a senior position in the "Circus"; but in Smiley's People Michael Byrne has him nearer to being a contemporary of Smiley)."

It simply isn't true. Michael Byrne is nearly a decade younger than Michael Jayston, and thirty years younger than Guinness. He's also shown with a very young, pregnant, wife, and a sports car. He's hardly being portrayed as the contemporary of the aged retiree Smiley.

Fair use rationale for Image:Book cover Alec Guinness as George Smiley.jpg
Image:Book cover Alec Guinness as George Smiley.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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BetacommandBot 06:29, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Book cover Alec Guinness as George Smiley.jpg
Image:Book cover Alec Guinness as George Smiley.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot 15:24, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Models
The new movie adaptation of Tinker, Taylor is likely to ignite the old debate over who le Carre used as the model for George Smiley. I've added a paragraph making it clear that le Carre almost surely used Maurice Oldfield as the biographical model for Smiley.

Before anyone thinks of changing that explanation, please check the facts. Both were medievalist academics. The MI6 service records of both match exactly, down to the timing and location of overseas postings. Both were passed over once to be head of the SIS and then later appointed. Both were quiet, private men with secretly troubled love lives. And le Carre's physical description of Smiley matches Oldfield to a tee.

For some reason le Carre dislikes having Smiley taken for Oldfield. It may that he doesn't want it assumed that he cribbed his most famous character wholesale from a real person, or that he's embarrassed that Oldfield was later revealed to be gay (although that seems unlikely). Le Carre claims that he and Oldfield were posted abroad (Germany and the US, respectively) and never worked together, but actually Oldfield was stationed at SIS headquarters in 1959 when le Carre was being trained and oriented. Interestingly, in the novels the character of Peter Guilliam (who many take to be semi-autobiographical) is recruited into the Circus and mentored by Smiley right around the same time in the fictional timeline. Wabobo3 (talk) 02:02, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Le Carré himself names two men - Vivian Green and Lord Clanmorris (aka John Bingham) - as the models for Smiley:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/8344925/John-le-Carre-the-real-George-Smiley-revealed.html

Oldfield may well also have played a part, but please be wary of OR and favouring 'truth' over verifiability.

Regards BearAllen (talk) 06:24, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Having read the page again, I've removed that paragraph for now. It appears to be original research, and it's specifically denied by the subject. If you can find a reliable source which says the same thing, please reinsert it. BearAllen (talk) 06:54, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't need to cite a source because the textual analysis I've already provided shows that le Carre is, to be blunt, lying about whom he based George Smiley. John Bingham is the basis for Jack Brotherhood and many other Brotherhood-like characters in his books. Jack Brotherhood, despite what le Carre says, is nothing like the George Smiley of Tinker, Tailor and later works. Vivian Green is the model for the various Oxbridge dons who recruit for SIS in his novels. Smiley, however, is clearly based on Oldfield.

Remember, le Carre remains a complete spook in his heart, by his own admission. He's lived a life of lies since his earliest days. That's what A Perfect Spy and a number of his semi-autobiographical books are about, living a life in the dark world of half-truths. He is the last person you want to cite as the canonical citation regarding his own works. Also, by his own admission, he is still bound the UK Official Secrets Act and literally cannot tell the truth about his SIS service.Wabobo3 (talk) 01:04, 10 December 2013 (UTC)


 * You always need a cite. Your "textual analysis" is original research. You should review that core Wikipedia policy, and also that of verifiability. HLGallon (talk) 03:44, 10 December 2013 (UTC)


 * I've already explained the citation once. Stop removing this caveat because it is correct.Wabobo3 (talk) 05:05, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Firstly, unless you're a recognized published authority on the subject, your analysis isn't citable.

Secondly, even if it were, it's demonstrably wrong.

"Both were medievalist academics."

Smiley studied languages, Oldfield studied history. Smiley was public school and Oxford, Oldfield grammar school and red-brick.

"The MI6 service records of both match exactly, down to the timing and location of overseas postings."

Details of smiley's career are scant, at best, but what is available doesn't match Oldfield. For one, Smiley is described as having been recruited to SIS in 1928 and spending the war working largely in Germany and then London. Oldfield spent the war in the middle-east in army intelligence and wasn't recruited until twenty years after the fictional Smiley. In the first Le Carre novel, set around 1960, Smiley is doing a menial security vetting job and then resigns from the service. Oldfield, on the other hand, spent this period in the exalted position of the SIS Washington liaison. There's no mention I can recall of Smiley being posted twice to Singapore.

"Both were passed over once to be head of the SIS and then later appointed."

This was ten years after the first Smiley novel. How is that in any way relevant?

"Both were quiet, private men with secretly troubled love lives"

I'm going to go out on a limb and say being quiet and private are not rare attributes amongst intelligence officers. Smiley had an unhappy marriage to an unfaithful wife - a constant theme in Le Carre's books - whereas Oldfield was unmarried and gay. Oldfield was a committed Christian and regular church-goer - there's no mention of it for Smiley. I don't see how you get this 'exact fit' business?

It's quite possible Oldfield had some influence on the character but you need a source to claim it, especially when you are specifically and directly contradicting the author. BearAllen (talk) 14:46, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Spolier for Haydon's character in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
I strongly suggest taking this small part of the sentence out as it contributes nothing to the rest of the text. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dolfinack (talk • contribs) 13:45, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't know what the specific wiki policy is - you're welcome to look it up - but most articles I've read on books and book characters do not shy away from revealing 'whodunnit'. BearAllen (talk) 08:41, 6 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia takes great delight in being an encyclopaedia, WP:SPOILER, you are not allowed to remove spoilers or warn about them. 82.26.126.17 (talk) 19:54, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

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Alec Leamas' plotline
The current version of the article refers to suicide by cop, but by definition that would require Alec Leamas to threaten some kind of harm. That's clearly not what he does in The Spy Who Came in From the Cold - he clearly wants to be shot, but he goes about it by peaceably letting himself be seen at the highly militarised Berlin Wall. Airbornemihir (talk) 05:03, 19 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Changed. Airbornemihir (talk) 05:17, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Section George_Smiley is unacceptable as it stands
The section George_Smiley has almost no cites and seems to be mostly original research / personal opinions of the contributor. Let's either add good cites or remove material that we can't cite. - 2804:14D:5C59:8300:0:0:0:1000 (talk) 16:24, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

Age
I don't think A Legacy of Spies is set in 2017 as the article suggests, and therefore I don't think Smiley is meant to be over 100 years old when he makes his final appearance at the end of the novel. The story is pretty clearly set in the mid-1990s. Revelations from the Stasi files, opened after German Reunification in late 1990, are regarded as recent, and Peter Guillam, the narrator, refers to the MI6 building at Vauxhall Cross (opened 1994) as 'new'. Guillam tells us he was born about 1930, making him close to le Carre's own age and in his mid-sixties when the story takes place. He cannot possibly be about 87, or the Service couldn't peremptorily order him to travel to London and he wouldn't be able to do most of the things he does in the story. Alec Leamas's son Christoph, born during the Second World War, tells Guillam he has been a (failed) fortune-hunter for thirty years, suggesting he is now in his fifties, consistent with a date circa 1995, certainly not 2017, by which time Christoph would be in his seventies and Guillam really wouldn't be up to inpromptu travel plans and 'tradecraft' dodges, or to the sex life he alludes to. (Nor is it remotely plausible that Millie MacCraig's safe house in Bloomsbury could have been kept going, on sub-rosa government funding, from the 1960s until 2017, with the same lady in charge, whereas it might just have lasted up to 1995.) And in 1995 or thereabouts, Smiley would be around 80. Although Smiley is always somewhat overweight, he doesn't seem to smoke, or to drink much, so he could be in reasonable form at that age. Le Carre only finesses Smiley's age between the early-Sixties novels and Tinker Tailor, when he docks Smiley ten years or so, from a birthdate about 1905 to about 1915, to keep him in the game and preserve him for action in future novels. Before Tinker Tailor, Smiley is a fraction older than, say, James Mason, who played him (as 'Charles Dobbs' for contractual reasons) in The Deadly Affair. From Tinker Tailor on, Smiley is about the same age as Alec Guinness, who played him in the two famous BBC series -- although, of course, those shows were made somewhat after the times when the action was set in the novels, so Smiley appeared a little older than he would actually have been. Gary Oldman was 53 when he played Smiley in the 2011 film of Tinker Tailor, just five years younger than Smiley would have been in 1973, when the film is set. Khamba Tendal (talk) 18:42, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Bordering on WP:NOTAFORUM and definitely Original research and editorial opinion. Wikipedia needs to reflect what reliable sources say - the 2017 date is from a source. (Hohum @ ) 22:59, 27 July 2021 (UTC)