Arthur Miller

Isidore Miller manufactured women's clothing in Manhattan with 400 people working for him, kept a chauffeur and a summer house at Far Rockaway, and lost nearly all of it in the crash of 1929. The family moved to Brooklyn. Arthur delivered bread before school, finished Abraham Lincoln High School in 1932, and worked a run of menial jobs to pay his own way to the University of Michigan. He went in for journalism, wrote for the student paper and the humor magazine, then switched to English and took the Avery Hopwood Award twice, for No Villain and Honors at Dawn. On graduating he chose the Federal Theatre Project over a better-paid screenwriting offer from 20th Century Fox. Congress closed the project in 1939 over fears of Communist infiltration.

He built himself a studio in Roxbury, Connecticut, wrote the first act of Death of a Salesman there in under a day, and finished the rest in six weeks. It opened at the Morosco on February 10, 1949, ran 742 performances, and became the first play to take the Pulitzer, the Tony and the Drama Critics' Circle award together. All My Sons had come two years before it. The Crucible, set in Salem in 1692 and aimed at the room he was standing in, opened in January 1953, and A View from the Bridge followed in 1955. The Price in 1968 was his biggest success since Salesman. He kept writing for five more decades and never wrote anything that displaced the salesman.

Elia Kazan, who had directed both his hits, went before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1952 and named Miller among others. The friendship ended there. When Miller's own turn came he refused to supply names — he said he could not use another man's name and bring trouble on him — was convicted of contempt of Congress in May 1957, and had it overturned in August 1958. That is the half everybody knows. In November 1966 his third wife, the photographer Inge Morath, gave birth to a son with Down syndrome. Over her objection Miller had the boy institutionalized, first in New York, then at the Southbury Training School in Connecticut. Morath visited often. Miller never visited him there and rarely spoke of him. When she died in 2002 he said they had had one child.

He died at Roxbury on February 10, 2005, of bladder cancer and heart failure, on the 56th anniversary of the night Salesman opened, and Broadway darkened its lights. Daniel, by then living in his own apartment, was named in the will beside the other three children. Two years later Vanity Fair published the whole story, and the standard account of Miller has had two halves ever since. His standing abroad had always run ahead of his standing at home — he directed Death of a Salesman himself in Beijing in 1983 and wrote a book about it. Michigan opened the Arthur Miller Theatre in 2007. On his own instruction it is the only theater anywhere that carries his name.

Arthur Miller's life against the full span of the corpus.

• All My Sons other
  His first Broadway success, directed by Elia Kazan 1947
• Death of a Salesman other
  First play to win the Pulitzer, the Tony and the Drama Critics' Circle award 1949
• The Crucible other
  Salem in 1692, written at the height of the loyalty hearings 1953
• A View from the Bridge other
  Longshoremen, an informer, and a Brooklyn the audience recognized 1955
• The Misfits film
  Written for Marilyn Monroe while the marriage was falling apart 1961
• Timebends: A Life book
  The autobiography in which he finally wrote about Monroe 1987

• 1929 aged ~14 The crash takes the family business and they move to Brooklyn He delivered bread before school and paid his own way to college afterward.
• 1936 aged ~21 Wins the Avery Hopwood Award at Michigan for his first play No Villain. He won it again the next year for Honors at Dawn.
• 1938 aged ~23 Turns down 20th Century Fox for the Federal Theatre Project Congress shut the project down the following year.
• February 10, 1949 aged 33 Death of a Salesman opens at the Morosco Theatre It ran 742 performances. He died on the same date 56 years later.
• 1952 aged ~37 Elia Kazan names him before the House Un-American Activities Committee The friendship ended and did not recover.
• January 22, 1953 aged 37 The Crucible opens on Broadway
• May 1957 aged 41 Convicted of contempt of Congress for refusing to name names A court of appeals threw the conviction out in August 1958.
• November 1966 aged 51 His son Daniel is born with Down syndrome and sent away Institutionalized over Inge Morath's objection. Miller never visited him at Southbury.
• 1983 aged ~68 Directs Death of a Salesman at the People's Art Theatre in Beijing

• Marilyn Monroe 1926–1962
  Actress and cultural icon whose blend of vulnerability and glamour made her a symbol of Hollywood's golden age. married to
• Joseph McCarthy 1908–1957
  Senator whose unsupported accusations and investigations gave “McCarthyism” its name and damaged civil liberties. wrote The Crucible against his hearings
• Eugene O'Neill 1888–1953
  Playwright whose psychologically complex dramas established serious American theater on the world stage. corresponded with
• August Wilson 1945–2005
  Playwright whose ten-play cycle chronicled African American life across the twentieth century. the American stage after him
• Lorraine Hansberry 1930–1965
  Playwright whose 'A Raisin in the Sun' brought Black family life, housing discrimination, and aspiration to Broadway. the American stage after him