John le Carré Net Worth

John le Carré's Quotes

• [describing how the spies he writes about are different than the "super-hero" secret agent in the James Bond mold] A mostly aging, weary, unromantic lot, prone to distressing stomach ailments and having troubles with their wives.
• Writers are two-home men--they want a place outside and a place within.
• [describing a particularly loathsome character in 'A Delicate Truth'] Jay Crispin was your normal, rootless, amoral, plausible, half-educated, nicely spoken frozen adolescent in a bespoke suit, with an unappeasable craving for money, power and respect, regardless where he got them from.
• There's probably nobody more redundant in the film world than a writer of origin hanging around the set of his movie, as I've learned to my cost. Alec Guinness actually did me the favor of having me shown off the set of the BBC's TV adaptation of "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy." All I was wanting to do was radiate my admiration, but Alec said my glare was too intense.
• 15 years ago this was a great Country in which to have a heart attack in the street.

Interesting Facts about John le Carré

1. Reportedly declined the C.B.E. (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) for his services to literature.
2. Biography/bibliography in: "Contemporary Authors". New Revision Series, Vol. 132, pp. 96-103 (as David Cornwell). Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale, 2005.
3. 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.
4. Half-brother of actress Charlotte Cornwell; the two died within a month of each other.
5. 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.
6. 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".
7. 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.
8. Father (with Alison) of Simon Cornwell, Stephen Cornwell, and Timothy Cornwell. Father (with Valérie) of British novelist Nick Harkaway.
9. 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.
10. Was one of the closest friends of esteemed director Stanley Kubrick.
11. Generally credited with creating the word "mole" to refer to a deep-cover intelligence agent.
12. Grandfather of Samuel Cornwell.
13. 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.
14. 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".
15. 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.