Arthur Asher Miller (October 17, 1915 – February 10, 2005) was an American
playwright
A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays.
Etymology
The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English ...
,
essayist and
screenwriter
A screenplay writer (also called screenwriter, scriptwriter, scribe or scenarist) is a writer who practices the craft of screenwriting, writing screenplays on which mass media, such as films, television programs and video games, are based.
...
in the 20th-century
American theater. Among his most popular plays are ''
All My Sons
''All My Sons'' is a three-act play written in 1946 by Arthur Miller. It opened on Broadway at the Coronet Theatre in New York City on January 29, 1947, closed on November 8, 1949, and ran for 328 performances. It was directed by Elia Kazan (t ...
'' (1947), ''
Death of a Salesman'' (1949), ''
The Crucible'' (1953), and ''
A View from the Bridge
''A View from the Bridge'' is a play by American playwright Arthur Miller. It was first staged on September 29, 1955, as a one-act verse drama with ''A Memory of Two Mondays'' at the Coronet Theatre on Broadway. The run was unsuccessful, and M ...
'' (1955). He wrote several
screenplay
''ScreenPlay'' is a television drama anthology series broadcast on BBC2 between 9 July 1986 and 27 October 1993.
Background
After single-play anthology series went off the air, the BBC introduced several showcases for made-for-television, fe ...
s and was most noted for his work on ''
The Misfits'' (1961). The drama ''Death of a Salesman'' is considered one of the best American plays of the 20th century.
Miller was often in the public eye, particularly during the late 1940s, '50s and early '60s. During this time, he received a
Pulitzer Prize for Drama, testified before the
House Un-American Activities Committee
The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly dubbed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives, created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloy ...
, and married
Marilyn Monroe. In 1980, he received the
St. Louis Literary Award The St. Louis Literary Award has been presented yearly since 1967 to a distinguished figure in literature. It is sponsored by the Saint Louis University Library Associates.
Winners
Past Recipients of the Award:
*2023 Neil Gaiman
*2022 Arundhati ...
from the
Saint Louis University
Saint Louis University (SLU) is a private Jesuit research university with campuses in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, and Madrid, Spain. Founded in 1818 by Louis William Valentine DuBourg, it is the oldest university west of the Mississip ...
Library Associates. He received the
Praemium Imperiale prize in 2001, the
Prince of Asturias Award in 2002, and the
Jerusalem Prize
The Jerusalem Prize for the Freedom of the Individual in Society is a biennial literary award given to writers whose works have dealt with themes of human freedom in society.
It is awarded at the Jerusalem International Book Forum (previously kn ...
in 2003, and the
Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize in 1999.
Biography
Early life
Miller was born in
Harlem, in the
New York City borough of
Manhattan, the second of three children of Augusta (Barnett) and Isidore Miller. He was
Jewish and of
Polish-Jewish
The history of the Jews in Poland dates back at least 1,000 years. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Ashkenazi Jewish community in the world. Poland was a principal center of Jewish culture, because of the lon ...
descent. His father was born in
Radomyśl Wielki
Radomyśl Wielki () is a town in the Subcarpathian Voivodeship, ( Mielec County), Poland, with a population of 3,231 inhabitants (30.06.2019). The town lies on a local road nr. 984, running between Tarnów and Mielec and within the historic ...
,
Galicia
Galicia may refer to:
Geographic regions
* Galicia (Spain), a region and autonomous community of northwestern Spain
** Gallaecia, a Roman province
** The post-Roman Kingdom of the Suebi, also called the Kingdom of Gallaecia
** The medieval King ...
(then part of
Austria-Hungary, now Poland), and his mother was a native of New York whose parents also arrived from that town. Isidore owned a women's clothing manufacturing business employing 400 people. He became a wealthy and respected man in the community. The family, including Miller's younger sister
Joan Copeland, lived on West
110th Street
110th Street is a street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is commonly known as the boundary between Harlem and Central Park, along which it is known as Central Park North. In the west, between Central Park West/Frederick Dougl ...
in Manhattan, owned a summer house in
Far Rockaway, Queens, and employed a chauffeur.
In the
Wall Street Crash of 1929, the family lost almost everything and moved to
Gravesend, Brooklyn.
[The Times Arthur Miller Obituary, (London: The Times, 2005)] (One source says they moved to
Midwood.) As a teenager, Miller delivered bread every morning before school to help the family.
Miller later published an account of his early years under the title "A Boy Grew in Brooklyn". After graduating in 1932 from
Abraham Lincoln High School, he worked at several menial jobs to pay for his college tuition at the
University of Michigan.
After graduation (), he worked as a psychiatric aide and copywriter before accepting faculty posts at
New York University and
University of New Hampshire.
On May 1, 1935, he joined the
League of American Writers
The League of American Writers was an association of American novelists, playwrights, poets, journalists, and literary critics launched by the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) in 1935. The group included Communist Party members, and so-called " fell ...
(1935–1943), whose members included
Alexander Trachtenberg
Alexander "Alex" Trachtenberg (23 November 1884 – 26 December 1966) was an American publisher of radical political books and pamphlets, founder and manager of International Publishers of New York. He was a longtime activist in the Socialist Part ...
of
International Publishers,
Franklin Folsom
Franklin Brewster Folsom (21 July 1907 – 30 April 1995) was an American writer of popular books, many for children and young people, on archaeology, anthropology, and other subjects – he had over 80 titles published both under his own name a ...
,
Louis Untermeyer
Louis Untermeyer (October 1, 1885 – December 18, 1977) was an American poet, anthologist, critic, and editor. He was appointed the fourteenth Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1961.
Life and career
Untermeyer was born in New Y ...
,
I. F. Stone
Isidor Feinstein "I. F." Stone (December 24, 1907 – June 18, 1989) was an American investigative journalist, writer, and author.
Known for his politically progressive views, Stone is best remembered for ''I. F. Stone's Weekly'' (1953–1971), ...
,
Myra Page,
Millen Brand,
Lillian Hellman and
Dashiell Hammett. (Members were largely either
Communist Party members or
fellow travelers
The term ''fellow traveller'' (also ''fellow traveler'') identifies a person who is intellectually sympathetic to the ideology of a political organization, and who co-operates in the organization's politics, without being a formal member of that o ...
.)
[
]
At the
University of Michigan, Miller first majored in
journalism and wrote for the student newspaper, ''
The Michigan Daily'', and the satirical ''
Gargoyle Humor Magazine
''The Gargoyle Humor Magazine'' or ''The Gargoyle'' is the official College humor magazines, student-run humor magazine for the University of Michigan. It has been satire, satirizing both Ann Arbor, local and national events for more than one hund ...
''. It was during this time that he wrote his first play, ''
No Villain
''No Villain'' is a play written by Arthur Miller during his sophomore year of college in 1936, during spring break. This was his first work, reportedly written in five days in the hope of winning a $250 Hopwood Award in drama, the first of two t ...
''.
He switched his major to
English, and subsequently won the
Avery Hopwood Award for ''No Villain.'' The award led him to consider that he could have a career as a playwright. He enrolled in a playwriting seminar with the influential
Professor Kenneth Rowe, who emphasized how a play was built to achieve its intended effect, or what Miller called "the dynamics of play construction". Rowe gave Miller realistic feedback and much-needed encouragement, and became a lifelong friend. Miller retained strong ties to his alma mater through the rest of his life, establishing the university's Arthur Miller Award in 1985 and the Arthur Miller Award for Dramatic Writing in 1999, and lending his name to the Arthur Miller Theatre in 2000. In 1937, Miller wrote ''
Honors at Dawn
''Honors at Dawn'', written in 1936, is Arthur Miller's second play (after '' No Villain'' /'' They Too Arise''), for which he won a second Avery Hopwood Award. It was written at the University of Michigan
, mottoeng = "Arts, ...
,'' which also received the Avery Hopwood Award.
After his graduation in 1938, he joined the
Federal Theatre Project
The Federal Theatre Project (FTP; 1935–1939) was a theatre program established during the Great Depression in the United States, Great Depression as part of the New Deal to fund live artistic performances and entertainment programs in the United ...
, a
New Deal
The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. Major federal programs agencies included the Civilian Cons ...
agency established to provide jobs in the theater. He chose the theater project despite the more lucrative offer to work as a scriptwriter for
20th Century Fox
20th Century Studios, Inc. (previously known as 20th Century Fox) is an American film production company headquartered at the Fox Studio Lot in the Century City area of Los Angeles. As of 2019, it serves as a film production arm of Walt Dis ...
.
However,
Congress, worried about possible Communist infiltration, closed the project in 1939.
Miller began working in the
Brooklyn Navy Yard while continuing to write
radio plays, some of which were broadcast on
CBS.
Early career
In 1940, Miller married Mary Grace Slattery.
The couple had two children, Jane (born September 7, 1944) and Robert (May 31, 1947 - March 6th, 2022). Miller was exempted from military service during World War II because of a high school
football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
injury to his left kneecap.
In 1944 Miller's first play was produced; ''
The Man Who Had All the Luck'' and won the Theatre Guild's National Award. The play closed after four performances with disastrous reviews.
In 1947, Miller's play ''
All My Sons
''All My Sons'' is a three-act play written in 1946 by Arthur Miller. It opened on Broadway at the Coronet Theatre in New York City on January 29, 1947, closed on November 8, 1949, and ran for 328 performances. It was directed by Elia Kazan (t ...
'', the writing of which had commenced in 1941, was a success on
Broadway (earning him his first
Tony Award,
for Best Author) and his reputation as a playwright was established. Years later, in a 1994 interview with
Ron Rifkin, Miller said that most contemporary critics regarded ''All My Sons'' as "a very depressing play in a time of great optimism" and that positive reviews from
Brooks Atkinson of ''
The New York Times'' had saved it from failure.
In 1948, Miller built a small studio in
Roxbury, Connecticut. There, in less than a day, he wrote Act I of ''
Death of a Salesman''. Within six weeks, he completed the rest of the play,
one of the classics of world theater.
''Death of a Salesman'' premiered on Broadway on February 10, 1949, at the
Morosco Theatre
The Morosco Theatre was a Broadway theatre near Times Square in New York City from 1917 to 1982. It housed many notable productions and its demolition, along with four adjacent theaters, was controversial.
History
Located at 217 West 45th Stree ...
, directed by
Elia Kazan
Elia Kazan (; born Elias Kazantzoglou ( el, Ηλίας Καζαντζόγλου); September 7, 1909 – September 28, 2003) was an American film and theatre director, producer, screenwriter and actor, described by ''The New York Times'' as "one o ...
, and starring
Lee J. Cobb as
Willy Loman,
Mildred Dunnock as Linda,
Arthur Kennedy
John Arthur Kennedy (February 17, 1914January 5, 1990) was an American stage and film actor known for his versatility in supporting film roles and his ability to create "an exceptional honesty and naturalness on stage", especially in the origi ...
as Biff, and
Cameron Mitchell as Happy. The play was commercially successful and critically acclaimed, winning a
Tony Award for Best Author, the
New York Drama Circle Critics' Award, and the
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...
for Drama. It was the first play to win all three of these major awards. The play was performed 742 times.
In 1949, Miller exchanged letters with
Eugene O'Neill regarding Miller's production of ''All My Sons''. O'Neill had sent Miller a congratulatory telegram; in response, he wrote a letter that consisted of a few paragraphs detailing his gratitude for the telegram, apologizing for not responding earlier, and inviting Eugene to the opening of ''Death of a Salesman''. O'Neill replied, accepting the apology, but declining the invitation, explaining that his
Parkinson's disease made it difficult to travel. He ended the letter with an invitation to
Boston, a trip that never occurred.
Critical years
In 1955, a
one-act version of Miller's
verse drama ''
A View from the Bridge
''A View from the Bridge'' is a play by American playwright Arthur Miller. It was first staged on September 29, 1955, as a one-act verse drama with ''A Memory of Two Mondays'' at the Coronet Theatre on Broadway. The run was unsuccessful, and M ...
'' opened on
Broadway in a joint bill with one of Miller's lesser-known plays, ''
A Memory of Two Mondays''. The following year, Miller revised ''A View from the Bridge'' as a two-act
prose drama, which
Peter Brook directed in London. A French-Italian co-production ''
Vu du pont'', based on the play, was released in 1962.
Marriages and family

In June 1956, Miller left his first wife, Mary Slattery, whom he married in 1940, and wed film star
Marilyn Monroe.
They met in 1951, had a brief affair, and remained in contact.
Monroe had just turned 30 when they married; she never had a real family of her own and was eager to join the family of her new husband.
[Meyers, Jeffrey. ''The Genius and the Goddess: Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe.'' University of Illinois Press (2010) ]
Monroe began to reconsider her career and the fact that trying to manage it made her feel helpless. She admitted to Miller, "I hate
Hollywood
Hollywood usually refers to:
* Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California
* Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States
Hollywood may also refer to:
Places United States
* Hollywood District (disambiguation)
* Hollywood, ...
. I don't want it any more. I want to live quietly in the country and just be there when you need me. I can't fight for myself any more."
[
Monroe converted to Judaism to "express her loyalty and get close to both Miller and his parents", writes biographer Jeffrey Meyers.][ She told her close friend, ]Susan Strasberg
Susan Elizabeth Strasberg (May 22, 1938 – January 21, 1999) was an American stage, film, and television actress. Imagined to be the next Hepburn-type ingenue, she was nominated for a Tony Award at age 18, playing the title role in ''The Diary ...
: "I can identify with the Jews. Everybody's always out to get them, no matter what they do, like me."[ Soon after Monroe converted, Egypt banned all of her movies.][
Away from Hollywood and the culture of celebrity, Monroe's life became more normal; she began cooking, keeping house and giving Miller more attention and affection than he had been used to.][
Later that year, Miller was subpoenaed by the ]HUAC
The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly dubbed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives, created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloy ...
, and Monroe accompanied him.[Çakırtaş, Önder]
"Double Portrayed: Tituba, Racism and Politics."
''International Journal of Language Academy''. Volume 1/1 Winter 2013, pp. 13–22. In her personal notes, she wrote about her worries during this period:
Miller began work on writing the screenplay for '' The Misfits'' in 1960, directed by John Huston
John Marcellus Huston ( ; August 5, 1906 – August 28, 1987) was an American film director, screenwriter, actor and visual artist. He wrote the screenplays for most of the 37 feature films he directed, many of which are today considered ...
and starring Monroe. It was during the filming that Miller's and Monroe's relationship hit difficulties, and he later said that the filming was one of the lowest points in his life. Monroe was taking drugs to help her sleep and more drugs to help her wake up, which caused her to arrive on the set late and then have trouble remembering her lines. Huston was unaware that Miller and Monroe were having problems in their private life. He recalled later, "I was impertinent enough to say to Arthur that to allow her to take drugs of any kind was criminal and utterly irresponsible. Shortly after that I realized that she wouldn't listen to Arthur at all; he had no say over her actions."
Shortly before the film's premiere in 1961, Miller and Monroe divorced after five years of marriage. Nineteen months later, on August 5, 1962, Monroe died of a likely drug overdose. Huston, who had also directed her in her first major role in '' The Asphalt Jungle'' in 1950, and who had seen her rise to stardom, put the blame for her death on her doctors as opposed to the stresses of being a star: "The girl was an addict of sleeping pills and she was made so by the God-damn doctors. It had nothing to do with the Hollywood set-up."
In February 1962, Miller married photographer Inge Morath, who had worked as a photographer documenting the production of ''The Misfits''. The first of their two children, Rebecca
Rebecca, ; Syriac: , ) from the Hebrew (lit., 'connection'), from Semitic root , 'to tie, couple or join', 'to secure', or 'to snare') () appears in the Hebrew Bible as the wife of Isaac and the mother of Jacob and Esau. According to biblical ...
, was born September 15, 1962. Their son Daniel was born with Down syndrome in November 1966. Against his wife's wishes, Miller had him institutionalized
Institutionalization is a concept in sociology.
It may also refer to:
* Committing someone to a psychiatric hospital
* Having the institutional syndrome, the psychological and mental health effects of living for a long time in an institution o ...
, first at a home for infants in New York City, then at the Southbury Training School in Connecticut. Though Morath visited Daniel often, Miller never visited him at the school and rarely spoke of him. Miller and Inge remained together until her death in 2002. Miller's son-in-law, actor Daniel Day-Lewis, is said to have visited Daniel frequently, and to have persuaded Miller to meet with him.
HUAC controversy and ''The Crucible''
In 1952, Elia Kazan
Elia Kazan (; born Elias Kazantzoglou ( el, Ηλίας Καζαντζόγλου); September 7, 1909 – September 28, 2003) was an American film and theatre director, producer, screenwriter and actor, described by ''The New York Times'' as "one o ...
appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee
The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly dubbed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives, created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloy ...
(HUAC). Kazan named eight members of the Group Theatre, including Clifford Odets, Paula Strasberg, Lillian Hellman, J. Edward Bromberg
Joseph Edward Bromberg (born Josef Bromberger, December 25, 1903 – December 6, 1951) was a Hungarian-born American character actor in motion picture and stage productions dating mostly from the 1930s and 1940s. Knowledge of his past as a membe ...
, and John Garfield, who in recent years had been fellow members of the Communist Party. Miller and Kazan were close friends throughout the late 1940s and early 1950s, but after Kazan's testimony to the HUAC, the pair's friendship ended. After speaking with Kazan about his testimony, Miller traveled to Salem, Massachusetts, to research the witch trials of 1692. He and Kazan did not speak to each other for the next ten years. Kazan later defended his own actions through his film ''On the Waterfront
''On the Waterfront'' is a 1954 American crime drama film, directed by Elia Kazan and written by Budd Schulberg. It stars Marlon Brando and features Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb, Rod Steiger, Pat Henning, and Eva Marie Saint in her film debut. ...
'', in which a dockworker heroically testifies against a corrupt union boss. Miller would retaliate against Kazan's work by writing ''A View from the Bridge
''A View from the Bridge'' is a play by American playwright Arthur Miller. It was first staged on September 29, 1955, as a one-act verse drama with ''A Memory of Two Mondays'' at the Coronet Theatre on Broadway. The run was unsuccessful, and M ...
'', a play where a longshoreman outs his co-workers motivated only by jealousy and greed. He sent a copy of the initial script to Kazan and when the director asked in jest to direct the movie, Miller replied "I only sent you the script to let you know what I think of Stool-Pigeons."
In '' The Crucible'', Miller likened the situation with the House Un-American Activities Committee to the witch hunt in Salem in 1692. The play opened at the Martin Beck Theatre on Broadway on January 22, 1953. Though widely considered only somewhat successful at the time of its release, today ''The Crucible'' is Miller's most frequently produced work throughout the world. It was adapted into an opera by Robert Ward Robert Ward may refer to:
Politicians
*Robert Ward (MP for City of York)
* Robert Ward (1754–1831), Irish MP for Wicklow Borough, Killyleagh and Bangor
* Robert Ward (American politician) (1952–2021), American lawyer and politician
* Robert War ...
in 1961.
The HUAC took an interest in Miller himself not long after ''The Crucible'' opened, engineering the US State Department's denying him a passport to attend the play's London opening in 1954. When Miller applied in 1956 for a routine renewal of his passport
A passport is an official travel document issued by a government that contains a person's identity. A person with a passport can travel to and from foreign countries more easily and access consular assistance. A passport certifies the personal ...
, the House Un-American Activities Committee
The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly dubbed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives, created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloy ...
used this opportunity to subpoena him to appear before the committee. Before appearing, Miller asked the committee not to ask him to name names, to which the chairman, Francis E. Walter
Francis Eugene Walter (May 26, 1894 – May 31, 1963) was a Democratic Party (United States), Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania. Walter was a prominent member of the House Un-American Activities Committee ...
(D-PA) agreed. When Miller attended the hearing, to which Monroe accompanied him, risking her own career, he gave the committee a detailed account of his political activities. Reneging on the chairman's promise, the committee demanded the names of friends and colleagues who had participated in similar activities. Miller refused to comply, saying "I could not use the name of another person and bring trouble on him." As a result, a judge found Miller guilty of contempt of Congress
Contempt of Congress is the act of obstructing the work of the United States Congress or one of its committees. Historically, the bribery of a U.S. senator or U.S. representative was considered contempt of Congress. In modern times, contempt of Co ...
in May 1957. Miller was sentenced to a fine and a prison sentence, blacklisted
Blacklisting is the action of a group or authority compiling a blacklist (or black list) of people, countries or other entities to be avoided or distrusted as being deemed unacceptable to those making the list. If someone is on a blacklist, t ...
, and disallowed a US passport. In August 1958, his conviction was overturned by the court of appeals, which ruled that Miller had been misled by the chairman of the HUAC.
Miller's experience with the HUAC affected him throughout his life. In the late 1970s, he joined other celebrities (including William Styron and Mike Nichols) who were brought together by the journalist Joan Barthel. Barthel's coverage of the highly publicized Barbara Gibbons murder case helped raise bail for Gibbons' son Peter Reilly, who had been convicted of his mother's murder based on what many felt was a coerced confession and little other evidence. Barthel documented the case in her book ''A Death in Canaan'', which was made as a television film of the same name and broadcast in 1978. '' City Confidential'', an A&E Network
A&E is an American basic cable network, the flagship television property of A&E Networks. The network was originally founded in 1984 as the Arts & Entertainment Network, initially focusing on fine arts, documentaries, television drama, dramas, and ...
series, produced an episode about the murder, postulating that part of the reason Miller took such an active interest (including supporting Reilly's defense and using his own celebrity to bring attention to Reilly's plight) was because he had felt similarly persecuted in his run-ins with the HUAC. He sympathized with Reilly, whom he firmly believed to be innocent and to have been railroaded by the Connecticut State Police and the Attorney General who had initially prosecuted the case.
Later career
In 1964, '' After the Fall'' was produced, and is said to be a deeply personal view of Miller's experiences during his marriage to Monroe. It reunited Miller with his former friend Kazan; they collaborated on the script and direction. It opened on January 23, 1964 at the ANTA Theatre in Washington Square Park amid a flurry of publicity and outrage at putting a Monroe-like character, Maggie, on stage. Robert Brustein, in a review in the ''New Republic New Republic may refer to:
Places
* New Republic, California, former name of Santa Rita, Monterey County, California
* New Republic (Santarem), district in the city of Santarém, Pará
Countries
* New Republic (Brazil), the restored civilian gove ...
'', called ''After the Fall'' "a three and one half hour breach of taste, a confessional autobiography of embarrassing explicitness ... There is a misogynistic strain in the play which the author does not seem to recognize. ... He has created a shameless piece of tabloid gossip, an act of exhibitionism which makes us all voyeurs ... a wretched piece of dramatic writing." That year, Miller produced '' Incident at Vichy''. In 1965, he was elected the first American president of PEN International, a position which he held for four years. A year later, he organized the 1966 PEN congress in New York City. He also wrote the penetrating family drama '' The Price'', produced in 1968. It was his most successful play since ''Death of a Salesman.''
In 1968, Miller attended the Democratic National Convention
The Democratic National Convention (DNC) is a series of presidential nominating conventions held every four years since 1832 by the United States Democratic Party. They have been administered by the Democratic National Committee since the 1852 ...
as a delegate for Eugene McCarthy
Eugene Joseph McCarthy (March 29, 1916December 10, 2005) was an American politician, writer, and academic from Minnesota. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1949 to 1959 and the United States Senate from 1959 to 1971. ...
. In 1969, Miller's works were banned in the Soviet Union after he campaigned for the freedom of dissident writers. Throughout the 1970s, he spent much of his time experimenting with the theatre, producing one-act plays such as ''Fame'' and ''The Reason Why'', and traveling with his wife, producing ''In the Country'' and ''Chinese Encounters'' with her. Both his 1972 comedy '' The Creation of the World and Other Business'' and its musical adaptation, '' Up from Paradise'', were critical and commercial failures.
Miller was an unusually articulate commentator on his own work. In 1978 he published a collection of his ''Theater Essays'', edited by Robert A. Martin and with a foreword by Miller. Highlights of the collection included Miller's introduction to his ''Collected Plays'', his reflections on the theory of tragedy, comments on the McCarthy Era, and pieces arguing for a publicly supported theater. Reviewing this collection in the ''Chicago Tribune,'' Studs Terkel
Louis "Studs" Terkel (May 16, 1912 – October 31, 2008) was an American writer, historian, actor, and broadcaster. He received the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1985 for '' The Good War'' and is best remembered for his oral his ...
remarked, "In reading he ''Theater Essays''
He or HE may refer to:
Language
* He (pronoun), an English pronoun
* He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ
* He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets
* He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...
..you are exhilaratingly aware of a social critic, as well as a playwright, who knows what he's talking about."
In 1983, Miller traveled to China to produce and direct ''Death of a Salesman'' at the People's Art Theatre in Beijing. It was a success in China and in 1984, ''Salesman in Beijing,'' a book about Miller's experiences in Beijing, was published. Around the same time, ''Death of a Salesman'' was made into a TV movie starring Dustin Hoffman as Willy Loman. Shown on CBS, it attracted 25 million viewers. In late 1987, Miller's autobiographical work,
''Timebends'', was published. Before it was published, it was well known that Miller would not talk about Monroe in interviews; in ''Timebends,'' he wrote about his experiences with Monroe in detail.
During the early-mid 1990s, Miller wrote three new plays: ''The Ride Down Mt. Morgan
''The Ride Down Mt. Morgan'' is a play by Arthur Miller.
Plot
The play's central character is Lyman Felt, an insurance agent and bigamist who maintains families in New York City and Elmira in upstate New York. When he is hospitalized following ...
'' (1991), '' The Last Yankee'' (1992), and '' Broken Glass'' (1994). In 1996, a film
A. Film Production A/S (previously A. Film A/S, A. Film ApS and A. Film I/S) is a Denmark, Danish animation studio currently based in Copenhagen, Denmark. Affiliated to the Copenhagen studio are A. Film Estonia located in Estonia and A. Film L ...
of ''The Crucible'' starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Scofield, Bruce Davison and Winona Ryder opened. Miller spent much of 1996 working on the screenplay.
''Mr. Peters' Connections
''Mr. Peters' Connections'' is a play by Arthur Miller. The title character is a former Pan Am pilot who worked for the airline in its glory days. He recalls flying into a thousand sunsets and bedding eighteen Rockettes in a month, eventually ma ...
'' was staged off-Broadway
An off-Broadway theatre is any professional theatre venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, inclusive. These theatres are smaller than Broadway theatres, but larger than off-off-Broadway theatres, which seat fewer tha ...
in 1998, and ''Death of a Salesman'' was revived on Broadway in 1999 to celebrate its 50th anniversary. Once again it was a large critical success, winning a Tony Award for best revival of a play.
In 1993, Miller received the National Medal of Arts
The National Medal of Arts is an award and title created by the United States Congress in 1984, for the purpose of honoring artists and Patronage, patrons of the arts. A prestigious American honor, it is the highest honor given to artists and ar ...
. He was honored with the PEN/Laura Pels Theater Award The PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award, commonly referred to as the PEN/Laura Pels Theater Award, is awarded by the PEN America (formerly PEN American Center). It annually recognizes two American playwrights. A medal is given ...
for a Master American Dramatist in 1998. In 2001 the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) selected him for the Jefferson Lecture, the U.S. federal government's highest honor for achievement in the humanities.[Jefferson Lecturers](_blank)
at NEH Website. Retrieved January 22, 2009. His lecture, "On Politics and the Art of Acting", analyzed political events (including the U.S. presidential election of 2000)
in terms of the "arts of performance". It drew attacks from some conservatives such as Jay Nordlinger, who called it "a disgrace"; and George Will, who argued that Miller was not a legitimate "scholar".
In 1999, Miller received The Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize, one of the richest prizes in the arts, given annually to "a man or woman who has made an outstanding contribution to the beauty of the world and to mankind's enjoyment and understanding of life." In 2001, he received the National Book Foundation'
Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters
On May 1, 2002, he received Spain's Principe de Asturias Prize for Literature as "the undisputed master of modern drama". Later that year, Ingeborg Morath died of lymphatic cancer at the age of 78. The following year Miller won the Jerusalem Prize
The Jerusalem Prize for the Freedom of the Individual in Society is a biennial literary award given to writers whose works have dealt with themes of human freedom in society.
It is awarded at the Jerusalem International Book Forum (previously kn ...
.
In December 2004, 89-year-old Miller announced that he had been in love with 34-year-old minimalist painter Agnes Barley and had been living with her at his Connecticut farm since 2002, and that they intended to marry. Within hours of her father's death, Rebecca Miller ordered Barley to vacate the premises because she had consistently been opposed to the relationship. Miller's final play, ''Finishing the Picture
''Finishing the Picture'' is Arthur Miller's final play. It was produced at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, Illinois, in October 2004, four months before Miller's death on February 10, 2005.
Production
The Goodman Theatre production was directed b ...
'', opened at the Goodman Theatre, Chicago, in the fall of 2004, with one character said to be based on Barley. It was reportedly based on his experience during the filming of ''The Misfits'', though Miller insisted the play was a work of fiction with independent characters that were no more than composite shadows of history.
Death
Miller died on the evening of February 10, 2005 (the 56th anniversary of the Broadway debut of ''Death of a Salesman'') at age 89 of bladder cancer and heart failure
Heart failure (HF), also known as congestive heart failure (CHF), is a syndrome, a group of signs and symptoms caused by an impairment of the heart's blood pumping function. Symptoms typically include shortness of breath, excessive fatigue, a ...
, at his home in Roxbury, Connecticut. He had been in hospice care at his sister's apartment in New York since his release from hospital the previous month. He was surrounded by Barley, family and friends. His body was interred at Roxbury Center Cemetery in Roxbury.
Legacy
Miller's writing career spanned over seven decades, and at the time of his death, he was considered one of the 20th century's greatest dramatists. After his death, many respected actors, directors, and producers paid tribute to him, some calling him the last great practitioner of the American stage, and Broadway theatres darkened their lights in a show of respect.
Miller's alma mater, the University of Michigan, opened the Arthur Miller Theatre in March 2007. Per his express wish, it is the only theater in the world that bears his name.
Mller's letters, notes, drafts and other papers are housed at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin.
Miller is also a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame. He was inducted in 1979.
In 1993, he received the Four Freedoms Award
The Four Freedoms Award is an annual award presented to "those men and women whose achievements have demonstrated a commitment to those principles which United States, US President of the United States, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt proclaime ...
for Freedom of Speech.
In 2017, his daughter, Rebecca Miller, a writer and filmmaker, completed a documentary about her father's life, '' Arthur Miller: Writer''.
Minor planet 3769 Arthurmiller is named after him.
Foundation
The Arthur Miller Foundation was founded to honor the legacy of Miller and his New York City Public School education. Its mission is "Promoting increased access and equity to theater arts education in our schools and increasing the number of students receiving theater arts education as an integral part of their academic curriculum." Its other initiatives include certification of new theater teachers and their placement in public schools, increasing the number of theater teachers in the system from the current estimate of 180 teachers in 1800 schools, supporting professional development of all certified theater teachers, and providing teaching artists, cultural partners, physical spaces, and theater ticket allocations for students. The foundation's primary purpose is to provide arts education in the New York City school system. Its current chancellor is Carmen Farina, a prominent proponent of the Common Core State Standards Initiative. The Master Arts Council includes Alec Baldwin
Alexander Rae Baldwin III (born April 3, 1958) is an American actor, comedian, and producer. In his early career, Baldwin played both leading and supporting roles in a variety of films such as Tim Burton's ''Beetlejuice'' (1988), Mike Nichol ...
, Ellen Barkin
Ellen Rona Barkin (born April 16, 1954) is an American actress and a producer. Her breakthrough role was in the 1982 film '' Diner'', and in the following years, she had starring roles in films such as ''Tender Mercies'' (1983), ''Eddie and the ...
, Bradley Cooper, Dustin Hoffman, Scarlett Johansson, Tony Kushner, Julianne Moore, Michael Moore
Michael Francis Moore (born April 23, 1954) is an American filmmaker, author and left-wing activist. His works frequently address the topics of globalization and capitalism.
Moore won the 2002 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for ' ...
, Liam Neeson, David O. Russell, and Liev Schreiber. Miller's son-in-law, Daniel Day-Lewis, has served on the current board of directors since 2016.
The foundation celebrated Miller's 100th birthday with a one-night performance of his seminal works in November 2015.
The Arthur Miller Foundation currently supports a pilot program in theater and film at the public school Quest to Learn, in partnership with the Institute of Play. The model is being used as an in-school elective theater class and lab. Its objective is to create a sustainable theater education model to disseminate to teachers at professional development workshops.
Archive
Miller donated thirteen boxes of his earliest manuscripts to the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin in 1961 and 1962. This collection included the original handwritten notebooks and early typed drafts for ''Death of a Salesman'', ''The Crucible'', ''All My Sons'', and other works. In January, 2018, the Ransom Center announced the acquisition of the remainder of the Miller archive, totaling over 200 boxes. The full archive opened in November, 2019.
Literary and public criticism
Christopher Bigsby wrote ''Arthur Miller: The Definitive Biography'' based on boxes of papers Miller made available to him before his death in 2005. The book was published in November 2008, and is reported to reveal unpublished works in which Miller "bitterly attack dthe injustices of American racism long before it was taken up by the civil rights movement".
In his book ''Trinity of Passion'', author Alan M. Wald
Alan Maynard Wald (born June 1, 1946) is an American professor emeritus of English Literature and American Culture at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and writer of 20th-century American literature who focuses on Communist writers; he is an ...
conjectures that Miller was "a member of a writer's unit of the Communist Party around 1946," using the pseudonym Matt Wayne, and editing a drama column in the magazine '' The New Masses''.
In 1999 the writer Christopher Hitchens attacked Miller for comparing the Monica Lewinsky investigation to the Salem witch hunt
The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. More than 200 people were accused. Thirty people were found guilty, 19 of whom w ...
. Miller had asserted a parallel between the examination of physical evidence on Lewinsky's dress and the examinations of women's bodies for signs of the "Devil's Marks" in Salem. Hitchens scathingly disputed the parallel. In his memoir, ''Hitch-22
''Hitch-22: A Memoir'' is a memoir written by author and journalist Christopher Hitchens.
The book was published in May 2010 by Atlantic Books in the UK and June 2011 by Twelve, an imprint of Hachette Book Group USA, and was later nominated for a ...
'', Hitchens bitterly noted that Miller, despite his prominence as a left-wing intellectual, had failed to support author Salman Rushdie during the Iranian fatwa
A fatwā ( ; ar, فتوى; plural ''fatāwā'' ) is a legal ruling on a point of Islamic law (''sharia'') given by a qualified '' Faqih'' (Islamic jurist) in response to a question posed by a private individual, judge or government. A jurist i ...
involving '' The Satanic Verses''.
Works
Stage plays
* ''No Villain
''No Villain'' is a play written by Arthur Miller during his sophomore year of college in 1936, during spring break. This was his first work, reportedly written in five days in the hope of winning a $250 Hopwood Award in drama, the first of two t ...
'' (1936)
* ''They Too Arise
''They Too Arise'' was an early work of Arthur Miller
Arthur Asher Miller (October 17, 1915 – February 10, 2005) was an American playwright, essayist and screenwriter in the 20th-century American theater. Among his most popular plays ...
'' (1937, based on ''No Villain'')
* ''Honors at Dawn
''Honors at Dawn'', written in 1936, is Arthur Miller's second play (after '' No Villain'' /'' They Too Arise''), for which he won a second Avery Hopwood Award. It was written at the University of Michigan
, mottoeng = "Arts, ...
'' (1938, based on ''They Too Arise'')
* ''The Grass Still Grows'' (1938, based on ''They Too Arise'')
* ''The Great Disobedience'' (1938)
* ''Listen My Children'' (1939, with Norman Rosten)
* ''The Golden Years'' (1940)
* ''The Half-Bridge'' (1943)
* '' The Man Who Had All the Luck'' (1944)[
* '']All My Sons
''All My Sons'' is a three-act play written in 1946 by Arthur Miller. It opened on Broadway at the Coronet Theatre in New York City on January 29, 1947, closed on November 8, 1949, and ran for 328 performances. It was directed by Elia Kazan (t ...
'' (1947)
* '' Death of a Salesman'' (1949)
* ''An Enemy of the People'' (1950, based on Henrik Ibsen's play ''An Enemy of the People
''An Enemy of the People'' (original Norwegian title: ''En folkefiende''), an 1882 play by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, followed his previous play, ''Ghosts'', which criticized the hypocrisy of his society's moral code. That response inclu ...
'')
* '' The Crucible'' (1953)
* ''A View from the Bridge
''A View from the Bridge'' is a play by American playwright Arthur Miller. It was first staged on September 29, 1955, as a one-act verse drama with ''A Memory of Two Mondays'' at the Coronet Theatre on Broadway. The run was unsuccessful, and M ...
'' (1955)
* '' A Memory of Two Mondays'' (1955)
* '' After the Fall'' (1964)
* '' Incident at Vichy'' (1964)
* '' The Price'' (1968)
* ''The Reason Why'' (1970)
* ''Fame'' (one-act, 1970; revised for television 1978)
* '' The Creation of the World and Other Business'' (1972)
* '' Up from Paradise'' (1974)
* ''The Archbishop's Ceiling
''The Archbishop's Ceiling'' is a drama written in the 1970s by Arthur Miller. It was originally produced at the John F. Kennedy Center, with forty performances in April and May of 1977, but failed to attract the attention of Broadway.[The American Clock
''The American Clock'' is a play by Arthur Miller. The play is about 1930s America during The Great Depression. It is based in part on Studs Terkel's '' Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression''.
Plot
The Baum family—father Moe, mot ...]
'' (1980)
* '' Playing for Time'' (television play, 1980)
* ''Elegy for a Lady
''Elegy for a Lady'' is a one-act play by Arthur Miller. It was first presented in 1982 by the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut, where it was combined with ''Some Kind of Love Story'' under the title ''2 by A.M.''; the combination of t ...
'' (short play, 1982, first part of ''Two Way Mirror'')
* '' Some Kind of Love Story'' (short play, 1982, second part of ''Two Way Mirror'')
* ''I Think About You a Great Deal'' (1986)
* ''Playing for Time'' (stage version, 1985)
* ''I Can't Remember Anything'' (1987, collected in ''Danger: Memory!'')
* ''Clara'' (1987, collected in ''Danger: Memory!'')
* ''The Ride Down Mt. Morgan
''The Ride Down Mt. Morgan'' is a play by Arthur Miller.
Plot
The play's central character is Lyman Felt, an insurance agent and bigamist who maintains families in New York City and Elmira in upstate New York. When he is hospitalized following ...
'' (1991)
* '' The Last Yankee'' (1993)
* '' Broken Glass'' (1994)
* ''Mr. Peters' Connections
''Mr. Peters' Connections'' is a play by Arthur Miller. The title character is a former Pan Am pilot who worked for the airline in its glory days. He recalls flying into a thousand sunsets and bedding eighteen Rockettes in a month, eventually ma ...
'' (1998)
* ''Resurrection Blues
''Resurrection Blues'' (2002) is Arthur Miller's penultimate play. Though Miller was not known for his humor, this play uses a pointed comedic edge to intensify his observations about the dangers, as well as the benefits, of blind belief: politica ...
'' (2002)
* ''Finishing the Picture
''Finishing the Picture'' is Arthur Miller's final play. It was produced at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, Illinois, in October 2004, four months before Miller's death on February 10, 2005.
Production
The Goodman Theatre production was directed b ...
'' (2004)
Radio plays
* ''The Pussycat and the Expert Plumber Who Was a Man'' (1941)
* ''Joel Chandler Harris'' (1941)
* ''The Battle of the Ovens'' (1942)
* ''Thunder from the Mountains'' (1942)
* ''I Was Married in Bataan'' (1942)
* ''That They May Win'' (1943)
* ''Listen for the Sound of Wings'' (1943)
* ''Bernardine'' (1944)
* ''I Love You'' (1944)
* ''Grandpa and the Statue'' (1944)
* ''The Philippines Never Surrendered'' (1944)
* '' The Guardsman'' (1944, based on Ferenc Molnár's play)
* ''The Story of Gus'' (1947)
Screenplays
* '' The Hook'' (1947)
* ''All My Sons
''All My Sons'' is a three-act play written in 1946 by Arthur Miller. It opened on Broadway at the Coronet Theatre in New York City on January 29, 1947, closed on November 8, 1949, and ran for 328 performances. It was directed by Elia Kazan (t ...
'' (1948)
* '' Let's Make Love'' (1960)
* '' The Misfits'' (1961)
* '' Death of a Salesman'' (1985)
* '' Everybody Wins'' (1990)
* '' The Crucible'' (1996)
Assorted fiction
* '' Focus'' (novel, 1945)
* "The Misfits" (short story, published in ''Esquire
Esquire (, ; abbreviated Esq.) is usually a courtesy title.
In the United Kingdom, ''esquire'' historically was a title of respect accorded to men of higher social rank, particularly members of the landed gentry above the rank of gentlema ...
'', October 1957)
* ''I Don't Need You Anymore'' (short stories, 1967)
* '' Homely Girl: A Life'' (short story, 1992, published in UK as "Plain Girl: A Life" 1995)
* "The Performance" (short story)
* ''Presence: Stories'' (2007) (short stories include ''The Bare Manuscript'', ''Beavers'', ''The Performance'', and ''Bulldog'')
Non-fiction
* ''Situation Normal'' (1944) is based on his experiences researching the war correspondence of Ernie Pyle.
* ''In Russia'' (1969), the first of three books created with his photographer wife Inge Morath, offers Miller's impressions of Russia and Russian society.
* ''In the Country'' (1977), with photographs by Morath and text by Miller, provides insight into how Miller spent his time in Roxbury, Connecticut, and profiles of his various neighbors.
* ''Chinese Encounters'' (1979) is a travel journal with photographs by Morath. It depicts the Chinese society in the state of flux which followed the end of the Cultural Revolution. Miller discusses the hardships of many writers, professors, and artists as they try to regain the sense of freedom and place they lost during Mao Zedong's regime.
* ''Salesman in Beijing'' (1984) details Miller's experiences with the 1983 Beijing People's Theatre production of ''Death of a Salesman''. He describes the idiosyncrasies, understandings, and insights encountered in directing a Chinese cast in a decidedly American play.
* ''Timebends: A Life'', Methuen London (1987) . Like ''Death of a Salesman'', the book follows the structure of memory itself, each passage linked to and triggered by the one before.
"On Politics and the Art of Acting", Viking 2001 an 85-page essay debating the thespian skills, or lack of, in American politics, this soon after the Bush/ Gore election campaign; comparing FDR, JFK, Reagon, Clinton.
Collections
* Abbotson, Susan C. W. (ed.), ''Arthur Miller: Collected Essays'', Penguin 2016
* Centola, Steven R. ed. ''Echoes Down the Corridor: Arthur Miller, Collected Essays 1944–2000'', Viking Penguin (US)/Methuen (UK), 2000
* Kushner, Tony, ed. ''Arthur Miller, Collected Plays 1944–1961'' ( Library of America, 2006) .
* Martin, Robert A. (ed.), "The theater essays of Arthur Miller", foreword by Arthur Miller. NY: Viking Press, 1978
References
Bibliography
* Bigsby, Christopher (ed.), ''The Cambridge Companion to Arthur Miller'', Cambridge 1997
* Gottfried, Martin, ''Arthur Miller, A Life'', Da Capo Press (US)/Faber and Faber (UK), 2003
* Koorey, Stefani, ''Arthur Miller's Life and Literature'', Scarecrow, 2000
* Moss, Leonard. ''Arthur Miller'', Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1980.
Further reading
* ''Critical Companion to Arthur Miller'', Susan C. W. Abbotson, Greenwood (2007)
* ''Student Companion to Arthur Miller'', Susan C. W. Abbotson, Facts on File (2000)
* ''File on Miller'', Christopher Bigsby (1988)
* ''Arthur Miller & Company'', Christopher Bigsby, editor (1990)
* ''Arthur Miller: A Critical Study'', Christopher Bigsby (2005)
* ''Remembering Arthur Miller'', Christopher Bigsby, editor (2005)
* ''Arthur Miller 1915–1962'', Christopher Bigsby (2008, U.K.; 2009, U.S.)
* ''The Cambridge Companion to Arthur Miller (Cambridge Companions to Literature)'', Christopher Bigsby, editor (1998, updated and republished 2010)
* ''Arthur Miller 1962–2005'', Christopher Bigsby (2011)
*
* ''Arthur Miller: Critical Insights'', Brenda Murphy, editor, Salem (2011)
* ''Understanding Death of a Salesman'', Brenda Murphy and Susan C. W. Abbotson, Greenwood (1999)
*
Critical articles
* ''Arthur Miller Journal'', published biannually by Penn State UP. Vol. 1.1 (2006)
* Radavich, David. "Arthur Miller's Sojourn in the Heartland". ''American Drama'' 16:2 (Summer 2007): 28–45.
External links
Organizations
Arthur Miller official website
Arthur Miller Society
The Arthur Miller Foundation
Archive
Arthur Miller Papers
at the Harry Ransom Center
"Playwright Arthur Miller's archive comes to the Harry Ransom Center"
Finding aid to Arthur Miller papers at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
Databases
*
*
*
Websites
*
*
*
A Visit With Castro
– Miller's article in ''The Nation'', January 12, 2004
*
Joyce Carol Oates on Arthur Miller
Arthur Miller Biography
Arthur Miller and Mccarthyism
Interviews
*
*
''Humanities'', March–April 2001
Obituaries
NPR obituary
CNN obituary
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