Gerald Westerby
Gerald Westerby, or Jerry Westerby, is a fictional character created by spy novelist John le Carré. He first appeared in ''Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy'' (1974), and is the titular figure in ''The Honourable Schoolboy'' (1977). Westerby, a former cricketer and international sports journalist, is an "occasional" asset of British intelligence ("the Circus"). He was initially recruited by George Smiley, for whom he holds great respect. In ''Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy'', he is approached by Smiley regarding information concerning the betrayal of Jim Prideaux on an assignment in Czechoslovakia. In ''The Honourable Schoolboy'', Westerby is recalled from his semi-retirement in Italy and despatched to Hong Kong. Portrayals Westerby was played by Joss Ackland in the 1979 television adaptation of ''Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy''.https://www.imdb.com/character/ch0113470/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t18 Played by Stephen Graham in the 2011 film adaptation, his role in the plot was amalgamated with that of ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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John Le Carré
David John Moore Cornwell (19 October 193112 December 2020), better known by his pen name John le Carré ( ), was a British and Irish author, best known for his espionage novels, many of which were successfully adapted for film or television. " neof the greatest novelists of the postwar era", during the 1950s and 1960s he worked for both the Security Service (MI5) and the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). He is considered to have been a "sophisticated, morally ambiguous writer". Le Carré's third novel, '' The Spy Who Came in from the Cold'' (1963), became an international best-seller, was adapted as an award-winning film and remains one of his best-known works. This success allowed him to leave MI6 to become a full-time author. His novels which have been adapted for film or television include ''The Looking Glass War'' (1965), ''Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy'' (1974), ''Smiley's People'' (1979), '' The Little Drummer Girl'' (1983), ''The Night Manager'' (1993), ''The Tailor of P ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
''Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy'' is a 1974 spy novel by British author John le Carré. It follows the endeavours of taciturn, aging spymaster George Smiley to uncover a Soviet mole in the British Secret Intelligence Service. The novel has received critical acclaim for its complex social commentary—and, at the time, relevance, following the defection of Kim Philby. The novel has been adapted into both a television series and a film, and remains a staple of the spy fiction genre. In 2022, the novel was included on the "Big Jubilee Read" list of 70 books by Commonwealth authors, selected to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II. Background When ''Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy'' was published in 1974, revelations exposing the presence of Soviet double agents in Britain were still fresh in public memory. Guy Burgess, Donald Duart Maclean, and Kim Philby, later known as members of the Cambridge Five, had been exposed as KGB spies. The five had risen to very senior positions in ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Honourable Schoolboy
''The Honourable Schoolboy'' (1977) is a spy novel by British writer John le Carré. George Smiley must reconstruct an intelligence service in order to run a successful offensive espionage operation to save the service from being dismantled by the government. In 1977, the book won the Gold Dagger award for the best crime novel of the year and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. ''The Honourable Schoolboy'' is the second novel in the omnibus titled either ''Smiley Versus Karla'' or ''The Quest for Karla''. Chronology This is the sixth le Carré spy novel featuring George Smiley. ''Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy'', ''The Honourable Schoolboy'' and ''Smiley's People'' were later published as an omnibus edition titled ''Smiley Versus Karla'' in 1982. Plot In 1974 George Smiley, the chief of the British secret intelligence service referred to as The Circus, is repairing the damage done to their operations by double agent Bill Haydon and looking for opportunities to target Karla, the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Journalist
A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism. Roles Journalists can be broadcast, print, advertising, and public relations personnel, and, depending on the form of journalism, the term ''journalist'' may also include various categories of individuals as per the roles they play in the process. This includes reporters, correspondents, citizen journalists, editors, editorial-writers, columnists, and visual journalists, such as photojournalists (journalists who use the medium of photography). A reporter is a type of journalist who researches, writes and reports on information in order to present using sources. This may entail conducting interviews, information-gathering and/or writing articles. Reporters may split their time between working in a newsroom, or from home, and going ou ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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George Smiley
George Smiley OBE is a fictional character created by John le Carré. Smiley is a career intelligence officer with "The Circus", the British overseas intelligence agency. He is a central character in the novels ''Call for the Dead'', ''A Murder of Quality'', ''Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy'', ''The Honourable Schoolboy'', and ''Smiley's People'', and a supporting character in '' The Spy Who Came in from the Cold'', ''The Looking Glass War'', ''The Secret Pilgrim'' and ''A Legacy of Spies''. The character has also appeared in a number of film, television, and radio adaptations of le Carré's books. Le Carré created Smiley as an intentional foil to James Bond, a character whom he believed depicted an inaccurate and damaging version of espionage life. Short, overweight, balding, and bespectacled, Smiley is polite and self-effacing and frequently allows others to mistreat him, including his serially unfaithful wife; these traits mask his inner cunning, excellent memory, mastery of ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Jim Prideaux
Jim Prideaux is a fictional character created by John le Carré. He appears in ''Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy'', with the book's events alternating between his point of view and that of George Smiley, and a minor character in ''A Legacy of Spies''. He is the head of the "scalphunters," a division of MI6 (called "The Circus" in le Carre's books) dedicated to especially dangerous counterintelligence missions often involving violence or assassinations. Prideaux's betrayal, and subsequent capture, following a botched mission in Czechoslovakia is the jumping off point for the events of the book. The character has been featured in both cinematic adaptations of the book, with each presenting a markedly different portrayal of the character. Fictional biography Born to "parents in European banking" with a "small aristo" background (his uncle being Comte Henri de Sainte-Yvonne) Prideaux was raised abroad but attended Oxford, in addition to studying language in France. Although put down for Eton ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta in South China. With 7.5 million residents of various nationalities in a territory, Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated places in the world. Hong Kong is also a major global financial centre and one of the most developed cities in the world. Hong Kong was established as a colony of the British Empire after the Qing Empire ceded Hong Kong Island from Xin'an County at the end of the First Opium War in 1841 then again in 1842.. The colony expanded to the Kowloon Peninsula in 1860 after the Second Opium War and was further extended when Britain obtained a 99-year lease of the New Territories in 1898... British Hong Kong was occupied by Imperial Japan from 1941 to 1945 during World War II; British administration resume ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Joss Ackland
Sidney Edmond Jocelyn Ackland CBE (born 29 February 1928) is an English retired actor who has appeared in more than 130 film and television roles. He was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for portraying Jock Delves Broughton in '' White Mischief'' (1987). Early life Ackland was born in North Kensington, London on 29 February 1928, the son of Major Sydney Norman Ackland (died 1981), an Irish journalist who had been sent to England to live with an aunt by his parents for seducing their maid, but subsequently seduced his aunt's maid, Ruth Izod (died 1957), whom he married. He was trained by Elsie Fogerty at the Central School of Speech and Drama, then based at the Royal Albert Hall, London. Ackland and Rosemary Kirkcaldy were married on 18 August 1951, when Ackland was 23 and she 22. She was an actress and Ackland wooed her when they appeared on stage together in Pitlochry, Scotland. The couple struggled initially as Ackland's acting career was in ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (miniseries)
''Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy'' is a 1979 British seven-part spy drama by the BBC. John Irvin directed and Jonathan Powell produced this adaptation of John le Carré's novel ''Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy'' (1974). The serial, which stars Alec Guinness, Alexander Knox, Ian Richardson, Michael Jayston, Bernard Hepton, Anthony Bate, Ian Bannen, George Sewell and Michael Aldridge, was shown in the United Kingdom from 10 September to 22 October 1979, and in the United States beginning on 29 September 1980. The US version was from the original seven episodes to fit into six episodes. The series was followed by ''Smiley's People'' in 1982. Plot George Smiley, deputy to the head of the British Secret Intelligence Service, is forced into retirement in the wake of Operation Testify, a failed spy mission to Czechoslovakia. Veteran British agent Jim Prideaux has been sent to meet a Czech general, having been told the general had information identifying a deep-cover Soviet spy planted in t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Stephen Graham
Stephen Joseph Graham (born 3 August 1973) is a British actor. He is best known for playing Andrew "Combo" Gascoigne in the film ''This Is England'' (2006) and its television sequels ''This Is England '86'' (2010), '' This Is England '88'' (2011), and ''This Is England '90'' (2015). His other film roles include Tommy in '' Snatch'' (2000), Shang in ''Gangs of New York'' (2002), Baby Face Nelson in '' Public Enemies'' (2009), Anthony "Tony Pro" Provenzano in ''The Irishman'' (2019), and Scrum in the '' Pirates of the Caribbean'' films ''On Stranger Tides'' (2011), '' Dead Men Tell No Tales'' (2017), and '' Boiling Point'' (2021). On television, Graham has starred as DS John Corbett in the fifth series of the BBC One series '' Line of Duty'' (2019), Al Capone in the HBO series '' Boardwalk Empire'' (2010–2014), Jacob Marley in the BBC/ FX miniseries '' A Christmas Carol'' (2019), DCI Taff Jones in the ITV miniseries '' White House Farm'' (2020), Eric McNally in the BBC dr ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (film)
''Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy'' (french: La Taupe, lit=The Mole) is a 2011 Cold War spy thriller film directed by Tomas Alfredson. The screenplay was written by Bridget O'Connor and Peter Straughan, based on John le Carré's 1974 novel of the same name. The film stars Gary Oldman as George Smiley, with Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, John Hurt, Toby Jones, Mark Strong, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ciarán Hinds, David Dencik and Kathy Burke supporting. It is set in London in the early 1970s and follows the hunt for a Soviet double agent at the top of the British secret service. The film was produced through the British company Working Title Films and financed by France's StudioCanal. It premiered in competition at the 68th Venice International Film Festival. A critical and commercial success, it was the highest-grossing film at the British box office for three consecutive weeks. It won the BAFTA Award for Best British Film. The film also received three Oscar nominations: Best Adapted Screenp ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hugh Bonneville
Hugh Richard Bonneville Williams (born 10 November 1963) is an English actor. He is best known for portraying Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham, in the ITV historical drama series ''Downton Abbey''. His performance on the show earned him a nomination at the Golden Globes and two consecutive Primetime Emmy Award nominations, as well as three Screen Actors Guild Awards. He reprised his role in the feature films, ''Downton Abbey'' (2019), and '' Downton Abbey: A New Era'' (2022). He also appeared in the films ''Notting Hill'' (1999), ''Iris'' (2001), ''The Monuments Men'' (2014), and the '' Paddington films'' (2014-2023). Early life and education Hugh Richard Bonneville Williams was born on 10 November 1963 in Paddington, London. His mother was a nurse and his father was a urological surgeon. He was educated at Dulwich College Preparatory School and at Sherborne School, an independent school in Dorset. Following secondary education, Bonneville read theology at Corpus Christi Co ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |