Trivia

Was one of the closest friends of esteemed director Stanley Kubrick.

Soviet double-agent Kim Philby, who was a big fan, invited him to have dinner at the Kremlin. He rejected Philby's offer, saying he could never sit at the same table with a traitor.

Being a member of MI6 when he wrote his first novel, "Call for the Dead" (1961) in Hamburg, it necessitated the use of a nom de plume, by which he is now commonly known.

British double agent and defector Kim Philby blew the cover of many British agents in the Communist bloc after his defection to the Soviet Union, with Le Carre (under his real name of David Cornwell) being one of them.

Generally credited with creating the word "mole" to refer to a deep-cover intelligence agent.

Reportedly declined the C.B.E. (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) for his services to literature.

He was the son of Olive Moore (Glassey) and Ronald Thomas Archibald Cornwell. His novel "A Perfect Spy" (1986) deals with his special relationship with his father. John's uncle was Alec Glassey, a Liberal MP for East Dorset, from 1929 to 1931, and his maternal grandfather, The Rev. William Glassey, was a Congregational minister.

John le Carré's grandmother was Irish, having been born in County Cork. Towards the end of his life, when he researched his Irish ancestors, he discovered that this made him eligible for Irish citizenship, and he obtained an Irish passport, partly because he was strongly opposed to the effect of Brexit on the UK.

He was vocally opposed to UK leaving the European Union in the 2016 Brexit referendum.

Former President George W. Bush is a fan of le Carré's novels, despite the fact that during Bush's presidency (2001-2009), le Carré declared publicly that he was disgusted with what he called the "Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld disaster of the last eight years", referring specifically to the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Specifically, right before the U.S. invaded Iraq, le Carré wrote an article titled "The United States of America has gone mad".

Appeared on CBS game show To Tell the Truth (1956) in 1964, alongside two impostors: none of the panelists guessed his real identity, with Orson Bean confidently saying he had "a twinkle in his eye that most writers don't have".

He was strongly critical of the Iraq War, particularly the UK's involvement.

His half-brother Rupert Howard Cornwell, acclaimed journalist in Washington, Rome and Moscow and author (God's Banker) was born 22 February 1946 and died 31 March 2017.

Whilst visiting the set of the BBC TV mini series "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy," John Le Carre was instructed by Alec Guinness to leave the set immediately as he found the writer was making Guinness feel uneasy and distracted. For his part, Le Carre said that he was keenly interested to see the actor bring George Smiley to life.

Half-brother of actress Charlotte Cornwell; the two died within a month of each other.

Father (with Alison) of Simon Cornwell, Stephen Cornwell, and Timothy Cornwell. Father (with Valérie) of British novelist Nick Harkaway. Grandfather of Samuel Cornwell.

Biography/bibliography in: "Contemporary Authors". New Revision Series, Vol. 132, pp. 96-103 (as David Cornwell). Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale, 2005.