Arthur Miller, a famed American playwright of the 20th century and Pulitzer Prize winner, died at age 89 on Feb. 10 due to heart failure. Ironically, death overcame him on the 56 anniversary of the premiere of his renowned play “Death of a Salesman.” Miller is perhaps most wellknown for his plays “Death of a Salesman,” the story of an elderly traveling salesman who attempts to fill the empty void in his life, and “The Crucible,” a peek into the horror of the Salem witch trials but also an allegory on the “red scare” America went through in the 1950s. Miller began writing his plays when he attended the University of Michigan and gained much recognition from those in his academic environment: he received several awards, including the Avery Hopwood Award in Drama for “No Villain” in 1937. He eventually graduated college and received the Theatre Guild National Award.
In 1944, several years after getting married to his girlfriend Mary Grace Slattery, he debuted on Broadway with “The Man Who Had All The Luck.” Unfortunately, the play was a flop that lasted only four performances. He didnʼt find success on Broadway until 1947, with his hit play “All My Sons,” directed by Elia Kazan. The success of that play was followed by “Death of a Salesman” in 1949, also directed by Kazan. It ran for 742 performances and closed nearly two years later. The play won six Tony Awards, including Best Author and Best Play.
In the 1950s, when McCarthyism was rampant in America and many artists and writers were “blacklisted,” Miller wrote “The Crucible.” The parable was so powerful that Miller himself became blacklisted after refusing to give the federal government a list of names from a certain writing circle suspected of communism. Miller lost his passport but vowed to fight the system. He became president of PEN, an organization made up mainly of suppressed writers.
Millerʼs life moved towards new waters when he met and married Marilyn Monroe after leaving his first wife. Many of Millerʼs friends and colleagues did not understand why he married her. Kazan, one of Monroeʼs former lovers, stated in his autobiography that Marilyn “was the type of woman someone took as a mistress, not as a wife.” However, Miller declared that he was in love. “All my energy and attention were devoted to trying to help her solve her problems,” Miller admitted much later, in 1992. “Unfortunately, I didnʼt have much success.”
Later in his life Miller received much criticism for not doing “enough” to help Monroe. The marriage ended in 1961 following a dispute over a movie character Miller had written for Monroe in the film based on his play, “The Misfits.”
Following his divorce, Miller went on with Kazan to launch the Lincoln Center Repertory theater. Millerʼs play “After the Fall,” based on his relationship with Monroe, was the first play staged in this new building.
Millerʼs plays have been so successful that they have been reincarnated into Hollywood films and TV movies. He was a deep artist who expressed his social commentary through the stage and film.
Jon C. Hopwood writes, “Millerʼs stature is based on his refusal to avoid moral and social issues in his writing, even when the personal cost was terrible. Miller might not have been the greatest writer in America, but his bravery and his willingness to fight for what he believed in his chosen art form made him a great American whose name will live on in world letters.” (Quotes from www.imdb. com and www.studlife.com)