Smiley's People is a spy novel by John le Carré, published in 1979. Featuring British master-spy George Smiley, it is the third and final novel of the "Karla Trilogy", following Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and The Honourable Schoolboy. George Smiley is called out from retirement for the last time to investigate the death of one of his old agents, a former Soviet General, titular head of an Estonian émigré organization based in London. Smiley learns the General had discovered information that leads to a final confrontation with George Smiley's nemesis, the Soviet spy-master Karla.

Maria Andreyevna Ostrakova is a Soviet émigrée in Paris who defected to the West years ago leaving behind a daughter named Alexandra. Ostrakova is persuaded by a Soviet agent, calling himself Kursky, that her daughter may be permitted to emigrate and join her in Paris, for "humanitarian reasons". Ostrakova eagerly applies for French citizenship for her daughter, but time passes with no sign of Alexandra and no further contact with "Kursky." She realises that she had been duped, and her real-life story has been used, probably by the KGB, for some unknown reason. She therefore contacts an old friend of her late husband, a General Vladimir, a former World War II Soviet general who was secretly an agent for the British because of his love for his native Estonia. After his eventual defection, "the General" became the leader of a pro-Estonian independence group, of dubious usefulness to Western intelligence agencies but nonetheless a hero among the Russian émigré community living in the West.

David John Moore Cornwell (born 19 October 1931), pen name John le Carré ( /lə ˈkɑrˌeɪ/), is a British author of espionage novels. During the 1950s and the 1960s, Cornwell worked for the British intelligence services MI5 and MI6, when he began writing novels under a pen name. His third novel The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963) became an international best-seller, and remains one of his best known works. Following the novel's success, he left MI6 to become a full-time author.

Since, Le Carré has established himself as an important writer of espionage fiction. In 1990, he received the Helmerich Award which is presented annually by the Tulsa Library Trust.. In 2008, The Times ranked Le Carré 22nd on its list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945". In 2011, he won the Goethe Medal, a yearly prize given by the Goethe Institute.

On 19 October 1931, David John Moore Cornwell was born to Richard Thomas Archibald (Ronnie) Cornwell (1906–75) and Olive (Glassy) Cornwell, in Poole, Dorset, England. He was the second son to the marriage, the first being Tony, two years his elder, now a retired advertising executive; his younger half-sister is the actress Charlotte Cornwell; and Rupert Cornwell, a former Independent newspaper Washington bureau chief, is a younger half-brother. John le Carré said he did not know his mother, who abandoned him when he was five years old, until their re-acquaintance when he was 21 years old. His relationship with his father was difficult, given that the man had been jailed for insurance fraud, was an associate of the Kray twins (among the foremost criminals in London) and was continually in debt. A biographer reports,

Sir Alec Guinness, CH, CBE (2 April 1914 – 5 August 2000) was an English actor. After an early career on the stage he was featured in several of the Ealing Comedies, including Kind Hearts and Coronets in which he played eight different characters. However, he was probably best known for his six collaborations with David Lean: Herbert Pocket in Great Expectations (1946), Fagin in Oliver Twist (1948), Col. Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor), Prince Faisal in Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Yevgraf in Doctor Zhivago (1965), and Professor Godbole in A Passage to India (1984). In later years, he achieved fame with younger audiences for his role as Obi-Wan Kenobi in George Lucas’s Star Wars films.

Guinness was born at 155 Lauderdale Mansions South, Lauderdale Road, Maida Vale, London as Alec Guinness de Cuffe. His mother's maiden name was Agnes Cuff. She was born 8 December 1890 to Edward Cuff and Mary Ann Benfield. On Guinness's birth certificate, the space for the mother's name shows Agnes de Cuffe. The space for the infant's name (where first names only are given) says Alec Guinness. The column for name and surname of father is blank.

Sir Patrick Stewart, OBE (born 13 July 1940) is an English film, television and stage actor, who has had a distinguished career in theatre and television. He is most widely known for his television and film roles, such as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation and its successor films, Professor Charles Xavier in the X-Men film series, and as the voice of Avery Bullock in American Dad!.

Stewart was born on 13 July 1940 in Mirfield, near Dewsbury in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England. He is the son of Gladys (née Barrowclough), a weaver and textile worker, and Alfred Stewart, a Regimental Sergeant Major in the British Army who served with the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry and previously worked as a general labourer and as a postman.

In a 2008 interview, Stewart said: "My father was a very potent individual, a very powerful man who got what he wanted. It was said that when he strode onto the parade ground, birds stopped singing. It was many, many years before I realised how my father inserted himself into my work. I've grown a moustache for Macbeth. My father didn't have one, but when I looked in the mirror just before I went on stage I saw my father's face staring straight back at me."

Ingrid Pitt (21 November 1937 – 23 November 2010) was an actress best known for her work in horror films of the 1960s and 1970s.

Pitt was born Ingoushka Petrov in Warsaw, Poland to a German father of Russian descent and a Polish Jewish mother. During World War II she and her family were imprisoned in a concentration camp. She survived and in Berlin in the 1950s met and married an American soldier and ended up living in California. After her marriage failed, she returned to Europe but after a small role in a film, she headed to Hollywood where she worked as a waitress while trying to make a career in the movies. Her natural hair colour was brown, though she frequently lightened it to blonde.

In the early 1960s Pitt was a member of the prestigious Berliner Ensemble, under the guidance of Bertolt Brecht's widow Helene Weigel. In 1965 she made her film debut in Doctor Zhivago, playing a minor role. In 1968 she co-starred in the low budget science fiction film The Omegans and in the same year played "Heidi" in Where Eagles Dare opposite Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood.