Arthur Miller is best known for award winning (New York Drama Critics Circle, Tony, Pulitzer Prize, Emmy, BAFTA and Oscar nominated) plays that are the staple of North American education, and for his unlikely marriage to a Hollywood bombshell. Miller died February 10, 2005 at age 89 of heart failure.
The New York native was born into a middle-class Jewish family. His father, a Polish immigrant, failed to keep the family clothing business after the stock market crashed in 1929, forcing the Millers to move from their spacious uptown Manhattan apartment to a small house in Brooklyn. To afford tuition, Miller worked a variety of jobs (truck driver, docker, singer, waiter) to save enough money to attend the University of Michigan. He once worked in what he called a mouse house, where he earned $15 a month feeding mice used in medical experiments. In college, he supplemented his income by writing plays, entering them in contests and living off the prize money. After graduation, Miller supported himself by working at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and writing radio scripts.
Miller took only six weeks to write the "Death of a Salesman." It debuted on Broadway in 1949 and was directed by Elia Kazan. "Salesman" was the first play to take the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, the Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize.
"Death of a Salesman" has been filmed for the big screen and television thirteen times. The first filmed version in 1951 starred Fredrick March and Kevin McCarthy and nominated for five Oscars. Lee J. Cobb was nominated for an Emmy for his performance in the 1966 U.S. TV version, with Miller also an Emmy. Rod Steiger played the part in a 1966 UK TV version. The play was produced on West German TV three times: in 1963, 1968 and 2001. A U.S./West German TV co-production starred Dustin Hoffman and John Malkovich, was nominated for ten Emmy Awards, winning three. A 1996 British TV version followed, and in 2000, Brian Dennehy starred in yet another TV version (Dennehy won a Tony Award in the 50th anniversary Broadway revival the year before).
In 1953, Miller received a Tony for "The Crucible." The play was about the mass hysteria that occurred during the 1692 Salem witch trials. It also served as an allegory to the House Committee on Un-American Activities hearings led by Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy, investigating communists in the entertainment business. Miller was summoned before the committee in 1956, but refused to give up the names of Communist writers he met at a meeting a decade earlier. For his silence, Miller was fined $500 and given a suspended one-month jail sentence. The decision was reversed on appeal in the mid-1960s.
"Crucible" lasted only 197 performances on its first Broadway run, but was filmed four times. The first version was a 1957 German/French co-production starring Simone Signoret and Yves Montand, for which won a BAFTA. An American TV film version was not produced until 1967, starring George C. Scott and Colleen Dewhurst, who were both nominated for Emmy Award. Britain produced a TV version in 1980. The Oscar-nominated 1996 film version starred Joan Allen, Winona Ryder and Miller's son-in-law, Daniel Day-Lewis. Miller was nominated for both an Oscar and a BAFTA for his adaptation of his own play.
Miller met Marilyn Monroe in 1951 at a Hollywood party. Monroe was dating Elia Kazan at the time, but the director asked Miller to cover for him as Kazan went on a date with another actress. Monroe - the struggling, richly ambitious young actress - and Miller, the bold young voice of American theater, seemed to bond immediately. Whether both men's involvement with Monroe played a part in their professional alienation is unclear.
For most of the four years of that marriage, Miller wrote almost nothing except "The Misfits," composed as a gift to his wife. The John Huston directed movie had a troubled production history. It was the final film for Clark Gable, who died of a heart attack just a few weeks after shooting wrapped. Many contend his death was brought on by the grueling stunts he performed as well as dealing with Monroe's less than professional behaviour on the set. The film premiered in early 1961, shortly after the couple's marriage ended in divorce. A year later, Miller would remarry, and six months after that, Monroe would be found dead, a possible suicide, at her house in Los Angeles.
In 1962, Miller wed photographer Inge Morath whom he met on the set of "The Misfits." They had two children. One son was born with Down's Syndrome who was put into an institution and never visited by Miller. Their other child is actress Rebecca Miller, wife of actor Daniel Day-Lewis.
In 1966, Miller adapted Henrik Ibsen's "An Enemy of the People" to the screen. It was turned into a made for TV movie and later, a little-seen 1978 theatrical version starring Steve McQueen (it was McQueen's second last film, made by his Solar Productions as part of a contractual obligation to Warner Bros).
Miller won his second Emmy for writing the 1980 TV movie "Playing for Time," starring Vanessa Redgrave and which told the true story of Fania Fenelon, a Jewish woman who survived Auschwitz by playing music for the Nazis.
For more about the life and times of a playwright considered America's greatest, visit the Public Broadcasting System's American Masters page.