Some have suggested that John le Carré unconsciously took David Smiley's surname for that of his hero George Smiley.
The novel does not feature le Carré's most famous character George Smiley.
George W. Bush | George Washington | George H. W. Bush | George | George Bernard Shaw | Order of St Michael and St George | George Gershwin | George Orwell | George Harrison | George Clooney | George III of the United Kingdom | George Frideric Handel | David Lloyd George | George Washington University | George Lucas | Saint George | George III | George Michael | George Pataki | George Clinton | George S. Patton | George IV of the United Kingdom | George Soros | George V | George Balanchine | George Armstrong Custer | George Jones | George II of Great Britain | George VI | George Mason University |
In 2010/11 he Executive Produced the film version of John leCarre's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, which stars Gary Oldman as master spy George Smiley, and also features Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, and Kathy Burke and is directed by Tomas Alfredson.
It was directed by Sidney Lumet from a script by Paul Dehn, and starred James Mason as Charles Dobbs, (le Carré had sold the use of the name George Smiley with the rights to The Spy Who Came in from the Cold), Harry Andrews as Mendel, Simone Signoret as Elsa Fennan and Maximilian Schell as Dieter Frey.
Smiley's People was dramatised as a six-part miniseries for television for the BBC in 1982 as a sequel to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979), again starring Alec Guinness as George Smiley.