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Arthur Asher Miller (October 17, 1915 – February 10, 2005) was an American actor and writer of plays in the 20th-century American theater. Among his most popular plays are All My Sons (1947), Death of a Salesman (1949), The Crucible (1953), and A View from the Bridge (1955). He wrote several screenplays, including The Misfits (1961). The drama Death of a Salesman is considered one of the best American plays of the 20th century.

Key Information

Miller was often in the public eye, particularly during the late 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s. During this time, he received a Pulitzer Prize for Drama, testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee, and married Marilyn Monroe. In 1980, he received the St. Louis Literary Award from the Saint Louis University Library Associates.[1][2] He received the Praemium Imperiale prize in 2001, the Prince of Asturias Award in 2002, and the Jerusalem Prize in 2003, and the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize in 1999.[3]

Early life and education

[edit]

Miller was born in the Harlem area of Manhattan, New York in 1915. He was the second of three children of Augusta (Barnett) and Isidore Miller. He was born into a Jewish family of Polish-Jewish descent.[4] His father was born in Radomyśl Wielki, Galicia (then part of Austria-Hungary, now Poland), and his mother was a native of New York whose parents also arrived from that town.[5] Isidore owned a women's clothing manufacturing business employing 400 people. He became a well respected man in the community.[6] The family, including Miller's younger sister Joan Copeland, lived on West[7] 110th Street in Manhattan, owned a summer house in Far Rockaway, Queens, and employed a chauffeur.[8] In the Wall Street crash of 1929, the family lost almost everything and moved to Gravesend, Brooklyn.[9] According to Peter Applebome, they moved to Midwood.[10]

As a teenager, Miller delivered bread every morning before school to help the family.[8] 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.[9][11] After graduation (c. 1936), 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 (1935–1943), whose members included Alexander Trachtenberg of International Publishers, Franklin Folsom, Louis Untermeyer, I. F. Stone, Myra Page, Millen Brand, Lillian Hellman and Dashiell Hammett. Members were largely either Communist Party members or fellow travelers.[12]

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. It was during this time that he wrote his first play, No Villain.[13] 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,[14] who emphasized how a play was built to achieve its intended effect, or what Miller called "the dynamics of play construction".[15] Rowe gave Miller realistic feedback and much-needed encouragement, and became a lifelong friend.[16] 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.[17] In 1937, Miller wrote Honors at Dawn, which also received the Avery Hopwood Award.[13] After his graduation in 1938, he joined the Federal Theatre Project, a New Deal 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.[13] However, Congress, worried about possible Communist infiltration, closed the project in 1939.[9] Miller began working in the Brooklyn Navy Yard while continuing to write radio plays, some of which were broadcast on CBS.[9][13]

Career

[edit]

1940–1949: Early career

[edit]

Miller was exempted from military service during World War II because of a high school football injury to his left kneecap.[9] In 1944 Miller's first play was produced: The Man Who Had All the Luck won the Theatre Guild's National Award.[18] The play closed after four performances with disastrous reviews.[19]

In 1947, Miller's play All My Sons, 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.[20] 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.[21]

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,[13] one of the classics of world theater.[9][22] Death of a Salesman premiered on Broadway on February 10, 1949, at the Morosco Theatre, directed by Elia Kazan, and starring Lee J. Cobb as Willy Loman, Mildred Dunnock as Linda, Arthur Kennedy 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 for Drama. It was the first play to win all three of these major awards. The play was performed 742 times.[9]

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.[23]

1950–1963: Critical years and HUAC controversy

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In 1952, Elia Kazan appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Kazan named eight members of the Group Theatre, including Clifford Odets, Paula Strasberg, Lillian Hellman, J. Edward Bromberg, and John Garfield,[24] who in recent years had been fellow members of the Communist Party.[25] 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.[25] After speaking with Kazan about his testimony, Miller traveled to Salem, Massachusetts, to research the witch trials of 1692.[26] 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, in which a dockworker heroically testifies against a corrupt union boss.[27] Miller would retaliate against Kazan's work by writing A View from the Bridge, 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."[28]

In The Crucible, which was first performed at the Martin Beck Theatre on Broadway on January 22, 1953, Miller likened the situation with the House Un-American Activities Committee to the witch hunt in Salem in 1692.[29][30][31] Though widely considered only somewhat successful at the time of its release, The Crucible is Miller's most frequently produced work throughout the world.[26] It was adapted into an opera by Robert Ward in 1961. Earlier in 1955, a one-act version of Miller's verse drama, titled A View from the Bridge, 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.[32] A French-Italian co-production Vu du pont, based on the play, was released in 1962.[33]

While newsmen take notes, Chairman Dies of House Un-American Activities Committee reads and proofs his letter replying to Pres. Roosevelt's attack on the committee, October 26, 1938

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.[13] When Miller applied in 1956 for a routine renewal of his passport, the House Un-American Activities Committee 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 (D-PA) agreed.[34] When Miller attended the hearing, to which Monroe accompanied him, risking her own career,[26] he gave the committee a detailed account of his political activities.[35] Miller emphasized that his cooperation with various Communist-front organizations had been unfortunate and a mistake. He stressed his own patriotism and portrayed himself as a changed man who regretted his errors. “I think it would be a disaster and a calamity if the Communist Party ever took over this country,” said Miller. “That is an opinion that has come to me not out of the blue sky but out of long thought.”[36] Reneging on the chairman's promise, the committee demanded the names of friends and colleagues who had participated in similar activities.[34] Miller refused to comply, saying "I could not use the name of another person and bring trouble on him."[34] As a result, a judge found Miller guilty of contempt of Congress in May 1957. Miller was sentenced to a fine and a prison sentence, blacklisted from Hollywood, and disallowed a US passport.[37] 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.[34]

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.[38] 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.[39] City Confidential, an A&E Network 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.[40][41]

Miller began work on writing the screenplay for The Misfits in 1960, directed by John Huston 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.[42] Monroe was taking drugs to help her sleep and other drugs to help her wake up, arriving on the set late, and having 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."[43]

Shortly before the film's premiere in 1961, Miller and Monroe divorced after five years of marriage.[13] Nineteen months later, on August 5, 1962, Monroe died of a likely drug overdose.[44] 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."[45]

1964–2004: Later career

[edit]

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.[26] Robert Brustein, in a review in the New Republic, 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."[46] 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.[47] 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.[26] It was his most successful play since Death of a Salesman.[48]

In 1968, Miller attended the Democratic National Convention as a delegate for Eugene McCarthy.[49] In 1969, Miller's works were banned in the Soviet Union after he campaigned for the freedom of dissident writers.[13] 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.[50][51]

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 remarked, "In reading [the Theater Essays] ... you are exhilaratingly aware of a social critic, as well as a playwright, who knows what he's talking about."[52]

Miller at the 1986 PEN Congress

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[48] 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 adapted into a television film starring Dustin Hoffman as Willy Loman. The film was broadcast on CBS, and garnered an audience viewership of 25 million.[13][53] 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; however, in the book, he wrote extensively in detail about his experiences with Monroe.[26]

During the early 1990s, Miller wrote three new plays: The Ride Down Mt. Morgan (1991), The Last Yankee (1992), and Broken Glass (1994). In 1996, a film adaptation of The Crucible starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Scofield, Bruce Davison and Winona Ryder was released. Miller spent much of 1996 working on the screenplay.[13]

Mr. Peters' Connections was staged Off-Broadway in 1998, and Death of a Salesman was revived on Broadway in 1999 to celebrate its 50th anniversary. The 1999 revival ran for 274 performances at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre, starring Brian Dennehy as Willy Loman. Once again, it was a large critical success, winning a Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play.[54]

In 1993, Miller received the National Medal of Arts.[55] He was honored with the PEN/Laura Pels Theater Award for a Master American Dramatist in 1998. In 2001, the National Endowment for the Humanities selected him for the Jefferson Lecture, the U.S. federal government's highest honor for achievement in the humanities.[56] His lecture, "On Politics and the Art of Acting",[57] analyzed political events (including the U.S. presidential election of 2000) in terms of the "arts of performance". It drew attacks from some conservatives[58] such as Jay Nordlinger, who called it "a disgrace";[59] and George Will, who argued that Miller was not a legitimate "scholar".[60]

In October 1999, Miller received The Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize, 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".[61] Additionally in 1999, San Jose State University honored Miller with the John Steinbeck "In the Souls of the People" Award, which is given to those who capture "Steinbeck's empathy, commitment to democratic values, and belief in the dignity of people who by circumstance are pushed to the fringes."[62] In 2001, he received the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.[63] 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[64] at the age of 78. The following year, Miller won the Jerusalem Prize.[13]

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.[65] Miller's final play, Finishing the Picture, opened at the Goodman Theatre, Chicago, in the fall of 2004, with one character said to be based on Barley.[66] It was reportedly based on his experience during the filming of The Misfits,[67] though Miller insisted the play was a work of fiction with independent characters that were no more than composite shadows of history.[68]

Personal life

[edit]

Marriages and family

[edit]

In 1940, Miller married Mary Grace Slattery.[26] The couple had two children, Jane (born September 7, 1944) and Robert (May 31, 1947 – March 6, 2022).[69]

Miller and Marilyn Monroe tie the knot in Westchester County, New York, June 1956

In June 1956, Miller left Slattery and wed film star Marilyn Monroe.[26] Miller and Monroe had met in 1951, had a brief affair, and remained in contact.[9][26] 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.[70]: 156 

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. 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."[70]: 154  Monroe converted to Judaism to "express her loyalty and get close to both Miller and his parents", writes biographer Jeffrey Meyers.[70]: 156  Soon after Monroe converted, Egypt banned all of her movies.[70]: 157  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.[70]: 157 

Later that year, Miller was subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee, and Monroe accompanied him.[31] In her personal notes, she wrote about her worries during this period:

I am so concerned about protecting Arthur. I love him—and he is the only person—human being I have ever known that I could love not only as a man to which I am attracted to practically out of my senses—but he is the only person—as another human being that I trust as much as myself...[71]

During the filming of the 1961 film The Misfits, which Miller wrote the script for, Miller and Monroe's marriage dissolved.[42] Monroe obtained a Mexican divorce from Miller in January 1961.[72]

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, 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, 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; Daniel left Southbury at the age of 17 and gradually went from living in a group home to living in an apartment with occasional visits by a social worker.[73][74] Miller and Inge remained together until her death in 2002. Miller's son-in-law, actor Daniel Day-Lewis, visited Daniel frequently and persuaded Miller to meet with him. At one point, Miller answered a question about his son by stating, "Well, he knows I’m a person, and he knows my name, but he doesn’t understand what it means to be a son.” When Inge died, Miller stated that they had only had one child together; Daniel did not attend her funeral. When Miller died, Daniel was named as an heir along with his three other children.[75]

Death

[edit]

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, at his home in Roxbury, Connecticut. He had been in hospice care at his sister's apartment in New York since his release from the hospital the previous month.[76] He was surrounded by his companion (painter Agnes Barley), family, and friends.[77][78] His body was interred at Roxbury Center Cemetery in Roxbury. Within hours of her father's death, Rebecca Miller, who had been consistently opposed to the relationship with Barley, ordered her to vacate the home she shared with Arthur.[79]

Legacy

[edit]

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.[22] After his death, many respected actors, directors, and producers paid tribute to him,[80] some calling him the last great practitioner of the American stage,[81] and Broadway theatres darkened their lights in a show of respect.[82] 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.[83]

Miller'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.[84][85] In 1993, he received the Four Freedoms Award for Freedom of Speech.[86] In 2017, his daughter, Rebecca Miller, a writer and filmmaker, completed a documentary about her father's life, Arthur Miller: Writer.[87] Minor planet 3769 Arthurmiller is named after him.[88] In the 2022 Netflix film Blonde, Miller was portrayed by Adrien Brody.[89]

Foundation

[edit]

The Arthur Miller Foundation was founded to honor the legacy of Miller and the 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."[90] 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[as of?] 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, Ellen Barkin, Bradley Cooper, Dustin Hoffman, Scarlett Johansson, Tony Kushner, Julianne Moore, Michael Moore, 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.[91]

The foundation celebrated Miller's 100th birthday with a one-night performance of his seminal works in November 2015.[92] 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.[93]

Archive

[edit]

Miller donated thirteen boxes of his earliest manuscripts to the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin in 1961 and 1962.[94] 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.[95][96] The full archive opened in November 2019.[97]

Literary and public criticism

[edit]

Christopher Bigsby wrote Arthur Miller: The Definitive Biography based on boxes of papers Miller made available to him before his death in 2005.[98] The book was published in November 2008, and is reported to reveal unpublished works in which Miller "bitterly attack[ed] the injustices of American racism long before it was taken up by the civil rights movement".[98] In his book Trinity of Passion, author Alan M. Wald 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.[99]

In 1999, the writer Christopher Hitchens attacked Miller for comparing the Monica Lewinsky investigation to the Salem witch hunt. 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.[100] In his memoir, Hitch-22, Hitchens bitterly noted that Miller, despite his prominence as a left-wing intellectual, had failed to support author Salman Rushdie during the Iranian fatwa involving The Satanic Verses.[101]

Works

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Stage plays

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Radio plays

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  • The Pussycat and the Expert Plumber Who Was a Man (1940)
  • 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

[edit]

Assorted fiction

[edit]
  • Focus (novel, 1945)
  • "The Misfits" (short story, published in Esquire, 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)
  • Presence: Stories (2007) (short stories include "The Bare Manuscript", "Beavers", "The Performance", and "Bulldog")

Non-fiction

[edit]
  • 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 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 directing a Chinese cast in an American play.
  • Timebends: A Life, Methuen London (1987) ISBN 0-413-41480-9. Miller's autobiography.
  • On Politics and the Art of Acting, Viking 2001 {ISBN 0-670-030-422} an 85-page essay about the thespian skills in American politics, comparing FDR, JFK, Reagan, Clinton.

Collections

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References

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Further reading

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[edit]
Revisions and contributorsEdit on WikipediaRead on Wikipedia

Arthur Miller

View on Grokipedia
from Grokipedia
Arthur Asher Miller (October 17, 1915 – February 10, 2005) was an American playwright and essayist whose works, including (1949) and (1953), examined themes of personal integrity, family dynamics, and societal pressures on the individual. Born in , , to Jewish immigrant parents in the garment trade, Miller experienced economic hardship during the , which influenced his depictions of the American Dream's failures. His breakthrough came with All My Sons (1947), but earned him the and established him as a leading voice in mid-20th-century American theater, with the play critiquing capitalism's dehumanizing effects through the tragic figure of . , an allegory for the McCarthy-era witch hunts, drew from the to condemn mass hysteria and ideological conformity. Miller's career intersected with political controversy when he testified before the (HUAC) in 1956, admitting past attendance at meetings of communist writers but refusing to identify others who had attended, leading to a conviction for that was later overturned on appeal. This stance, rooted in his defense of personal conscience over state demands, mirrored themes in his plays but reflected his own leftist sympathies, including support for causes aligned with Soviet fellow travelers during the 1930s and 1940s. Personally, Miller's 1956 marriage to , lasting until 1961, brought intense public scrutiny and inspired elements of The Misfits (1961), a screenplay he wrote for her, amid reports of their incompatible lifestyles. Despite such tumult, Miller's oeuvre, produced over six decades, earned him enduring recognition, including the 1999 , for probing the moral costs of modernity.

Early Life and Education

Family Background and Childhood

Arthur Miller was born Arthur Asher Miller on October 17, 1915, in to Jewish parents of Polish descent. His father, Isidore Miller, had immigrated to the from as a child and built a successful manufacturing women's coats and suits, initially working in his own father's garment firm, S. Miller & Sons. Miller's mother, Augusta (née Barnett), managed the household, and he was the second of three children in a family that initially enjoyed relative prosperity, residing in a spacious apartment at 45 West 110th Street in . The family's early circumstances allowed for a comfortable childhood, with Miller attending Public School #24 in Harlem from 1920 to 1928. 's Miltex Coat and Suit Company provided a stable income until the Wall Street Crash of 1929 devastated the garment industry, wiping out the business when Miller was 14 years old. This financial collapse forced the family to relocate from to a smaller home in , where they faced significant hardship amid the , an experience that profoundly shaped Miller's worldview and later writings on economic struggle and family dynamics. Isidore subsequently attempted ventures in hat but could not restore prior stability. In , Miller navigated a more modest environment, attending local schools while witnessing his father's resilience and his mother's emphasis on despite reduced means. The shift from affluence to austerity highlighted for young Miller the fragility of the , as his father's entrepreneurial efforts yielded in a contracting . This period instilled in him a keen of working-class life and immigrant aspirations, free from the insulation of his earlier years.

University Years and Initial Influences

After graduating from Abraham Lincoln High School in 1932, Miller held various menial jobs, including warehouse work, for two years to accumulate tuition funds before enrolling at the in 1934. Initially pursuing journalism, he shifted to an English major and contributed articles to the student newspaper . Under the guidance of Professor Kenneth T. , a playwriting instructor who emphasized classical dramatic techniques, Miller transitioned from short stories and radio scripts to stage plays, developing a structured approach to character-driven narratives. This mentorship proved pivotal, as connected Miller to theater professionals post-graduation and encouraged his exploration of social themes amid the Great Depression's economic dislocations. Miller gained prominence through the University of Michigan's Avery Hopwood Awards for , which recognized student works with cash prizes and professional readings. In 1936, he received first prize for No Villain (originally titled They Too Arise), a depicting a disrupted by labor union activism and strike violence. The following year, 1937, brought another first-prize win for Honors at Dawn, examining ideological clashes and personal ambition among university students during a campus election. In 1938, he earned second prize for The Great Disobedience, further honing his interest in individual resistance against institutional authority. These early successes, totaling over $250 in prizes, validated his pivot to despite initial rejections for submissions. Key influences during this period included Henrik Ibsen's realist dramas, studied intensively in Rowe's seminars, which modeled the integration of personal ethics with broader societal critiques, as seen in Ibsen's confrontations of bourgeois hypocrisy. Miller also drew from ancient Greek tragedians like and , absorbing principles of tragic inevitability and communal consequences from individual flaws, which Rowe incorporated into coursework on dramatic form. These elements informed Miller's emerging style of "social plays" that probed working-class struggles and moral dilemmas without overt . He received his in English in 1938.

Dramatic Career

Early Works and Breakthrough (1920s–1940s)

Miller's initial forays into playwriting occurred during his studies at the , where he received the Avery Hopwood Award for drama in 1936 for No Villain (also known as They Too Arise), a work depicting a garment industry strike that pits a son against his factory-owning father and explores in family relations. The following year, 1937, he won the award again for Honors at Dawn, which centered on young protagonists confronting social inequities in the style prevalent among 1930s dramatists influenced by leftist ideologies. These student successes, achieved while Miller balanced coursework and financial pressures through menial jobs, marked his early preoccupation with class conflict and moral dilemmas arising from economic hardship. Following his graduation in 1938, Miller returned to New York and struggled to sustain himself as a , producing unperformed scripts such as The Grass Still Grows (1939) and The Half-Bridge (1942) amid rejections from producers. To make ends meet, he contributed radio dramas to starting in 1940, including The Pussycat and the Expert Plumber Who Was a Man, Joel Chandler Harris (1941), and The Battle of the Ovens (1942), which honed his narrative techniques under commercial constraints. From 1940 to 1942, exempted from due to a prior knee injury, Miller labored as a shipfitter at the , where conversations about defective wartime parts sold to the military provided raw material for future works. Miller's professional stage debut came in 1944 with The Man Who Had All the Luck, a about a grappling with unearned success and existential unease, which opened on Broadway at the Forrest Theatre on November 23 but closed after only four performances amid poor reviews. This setback delayed his recognition until All My Sons premiered on January 29, 1947, at the Coronet Theatre, running for 328 performances and earning the Award for Best American Play. Drawing directly from Navy Yard anecdotes, the play indicts a manufacturer's decision to ship faulty cylinder heads for P-40 Warhawk fighters, resulting in 21 pilot deaths, and examines paternal responsibility and capitalist ethics through the Keller family's tragedy. The decade's pinnacle arrived with , which debuted on February 10, 1949, at the under Elia Kazan's direction, achieving 742 performances and grossing over $1 million in its first year. The drama, centered on Willy Loman's disillusionment with the amid economic precarity, won the on May 2, 1949, solidifying Miller's stature as a chronicler of mid-20th-century American aspirations and failures. These breakthroughs shifted theater from escapist fare toward realist critiques of postwar society, though Miller's focus on individual moral accountability amid systemic pressures drew varied interpretations.

Height of Fame and Political Tensions (1950s)

The 1950s marked the zenith of Arthur Miller's dramatic success, building on the triumph of Death of a Salesman (1949), with major productions that solidified his reputation as America's preeminent playwright. His play , premiered on January 22, 1953, at the Martin Beck Theatre in , drew initial mixed reviews from critics who found it overly didactic, yet it garnered the and evolved into a cornerstone of modern theater, running for 197 performances before closing. Intended as an likening the 1692 to contemporary anti-communist investigations, the work reflected Miller's critique of what he perceived as governmental overreach, though it faced resistance amid the era's heightened security concerns over Soviet . Complementing this, debuted in 1955 to stronger acclaim, earning the Award and further affirming Miller's exploration of moral dilemmas in American society. Miller's public profile surged with his marriage to actress on June 29, 1956, in , a union that fused literary prestige with Hollywood glamour and amplified media attention on his personal and professional life. The high-profile relationship, however, coincided with escalating political scrutiny; Miller had longstanding leftist associations, including signing pro-communist petitions in the 1930s and 1940s, which drew him into the orbit of the (HUAC). Subpoenaed amid the McCarthy-era —characterized by legitimate exposures of communist infiltration in government and entertainment alongside instances of overzealous accusations—Miller testified on June 21, 1956, admitting past attendance at meetings but refusing to identify other alleged members, citing and First Amendment protections. This defiance led to his conviction for on May 31, 1957, resulting in a $500 fine and 30-day jail sentence, which was suspended pending appeal; the U.S. Court of Appeals overturned the verdict in 1958, with the declining review. The episode imposed professional repercussions, including temporary from Hollywood screenwriting and initial denial of a for a European honeymoon, though he ultimately obtained it after public outcry. Despite these tensions, Miller contributed as narrator to the CBS television series Omnibus starting in 1956, extending his influence into broadcast media, while his works continued to tour internationally, underscoring a fame tempered by ideological conflict in an era of vigilance.

Later Plays and Adaptations (1960s–2005)

In the 1960s, Miller produced After the Fall (1964), which premiered on January 22 at the ANTA Washington Square Theatre and explored protagonist Quentin's reflections on personal betrayals, relationships, and collective guilt akin to , drawing autobiographical parallels to Miller's life including a character resembling . The play faced criticism for its perceived unflattering depiction of the Monroe-like figure, Maggie, amid ongoing public scrutiny of Miller's personal history. Later that year, Incident at Vichy debuted on December 3 at the ANTA Theatre, depicting detainees in confronting Nazi interrogation and probing themes of anti-Semitism, complicity, and individual resistance. Miller's 1961 screenplay The Misfits, released as a film directed by and starring , portrayed three cowboys and a divorcée with during a mustang roundup, reflecting themes of and freedom; written as a vehicle for Monroe, it marked one of Miller's few Hollywood adaptations from this era. By 1968, The Price opened on February 7 at the , centering on two estranged brothers appraising their late father's furniture and reckoning with familial resentment and diverging life choices, earning praise as an engrossing examination of past burdens. The 1970s and 1980s saw experimental works like The Creation of the World and Other Business (1972), a comedic Genesis retelling featuring Lucifer's role in introducing evil, and The American Clock (1980), a mosaic of Depression-era vignettes through the lens of the Baum family, highlighting economic despair. Playing for Time (1980), adapted from Fania Fénelon's memoir into a CBS television film, depicted Jewish musicians surviving Auschwitz by performing for SS officers, underscoring moral compromises under extremity. Other efforts, such as The Archbishop's Ceiling (1977) on surveillance in a communist regime and Danger: Memory! (1987) probing memory's distortions in guilt-ridden narratives, reflected Miller's interest in psychological and political tensions but often met with mixed commercial success. Into the 1990s and early 2000s, Miller continued with The Ride Down Mt. Morgan (1991), satirizing a bigamous executive's confrontation with his dual families post-accident, and Broken Glass (1994), linking a woman's psychosomatic to Kristallnacht's trauma and marital discord. Resurrection Blues (2002) critiqued media exploitation through a dictator's scheme to televise a rebel's for profit, while Finishing the Picture (2004) drew from The Misfits production chaos to lampoon Hollywood instability. These later plays, while thematically consistent with Miller's focus on moral accountability and societal failure, generally received subdued critical acclaim compared to his mid-century masterpieces, signaling a perceived creative waning amid persistent exploration of human frailty.

Political Engagement

Leftist Associations and Sympathies

Arthur Miller's political sympathies leaned leftward during the 1930s, shaped by the Great Depression's economic dislocations, which mirrored his family's descent from affluence to near-poverty after the 1929 . Influenced by Marxist ideas circulating among intellectuals, he joined the League of American Writers in May 1935, a group dominated by communist sympathizers and fellow travelers that promoted antifascist literature and worker solidarity while defending Soviet policies. The organization's alignment with the Communist Party's strategy underscored Miller's early affinity for collectivist critiques of , though he later distanced himself from formal party ties. Throughout the 1940s, Miller deepened these sympathies through active involvement in communist-front organizations, sponsoring and signing appeals for causes that advanced Soviet interests or domestic leftist agendas. In 1947, he endorsed the World Youth Festival in , a Soviet-backed event designed to cultivate international communist youth networks; opposed the outlawing of the U.S. ; and defended Gerhart Eisler, a high-ranking Comintern agent fleeing U.S. prosecution for espionage-related activities before defecting to . He also supported relief efforts in "Red China" under Mao Zedong's regime, protested the House Committee on Un-American Activities, and backed opposition to the , which criminalized advocacy for overthrowing the government—actions that aligned him with groups like the , identified by federal investigators as a communist front. Miller attended four to five writers' meetings during this period and signed an application around 1939–1940 for a study course, though he claimed ignorance of its explicit ideological bent at the time. FBI surveillance files documented these ties but noted his resistance to , with informants describing short-lived engagements in 1940 and 1947 rather than sustained membership. Under the pseudonym Matt Wayne, Miller contributed theater criticism to communist publications in the late and early 1940s, praising proletarian plays and critiquing bourgeois drama in terms echoing party-line , which revealed an ideological commitment beyond mere . These writings, uncovered in , suggest sympathies for Soviet cultural models that prioritized class struggle over individual artistry. Despite denying membership—asserting he was never "under Communist discipline"—Miller's pattern of endorsements for front groups reflected a worldview sympathetic to , even as he expressed disillusionment with Stalinist purges by the decade's end. In 1956 testimony, he characterized these associations as "unfortunate and a mistake," yet the breadth of his engagements—spanning petitions, events, and intellectual output—evidenced a decade-long alignment with leftist causes that prioritized anti-capitalist and defense of communist figures over unqualified anti-totalitarianism. On June 21, 1956, Arthur Miller appeared before the (HUAC) in , subpoenaed to testify regarding alleged communist influences in the entertainment industry. During the hearing, Miller acknowledged his participation in communist-front organizations during the 1940s, including attendance at meetings of the Writers' Club in New York in 1947 and a similar gathering in Hollywood in 1949. He refused, however, to identify specific individuals present at those meetings when directly questioned by committee members, invoking his First Amendment rights and stating that such disclosures would violate his personal . Miller's refusal led to his by a federal on two counts of for failing to comply with the 's directives to answer the naming questions. In May , following a in the U.S. District Court for of Columbia, he was convicted on one count of , with the judge initially sustaining the verdict but later vacating a second count; sentencing included a 30-day jail term and a $500 fine, though the jail sentence was stayed pending appeal. The conviction stemmed from Miller's non-compliance after the committee chairman had suspended and then purportedly resumed the line of questioning, but the highlighted procedural irregularities in the hearing's conduct. On August 7, 1958, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously overturned the conviction, ruling that Miller had not received an unequivocal directive to answer the suspended questions before the hearing concluded, rendering the contempt citation invalid under standards. The decision aligned with broader judicial scrutiny of HUAC procedures post-Watkins v. (1957), emphasizing that contempt convictions required clear pertinence and explicit commands from the . This outcome cleared Miller legally but drew mixed reactions, with supporters viewing it as a defense of individual rights against overreach, while critics of HUAC's investigations argued it undermined efforts to expose communist networks in cultural institutions.

Critiques of McCarthyism and Communist Apologia

Arthur Miller's play (1953) served as a prominent critiquing McCarthyism, likening the (HUAC) investigations to the of 1692, portraying both as driven by unfounded hysteria and coerced confessions rather than substantive threats. In his 1996 essay "Why I Wrote ," Miller described the work as a response to the 1952 HUAC hearings on Hollywood, emphasizing the committee's demand for names as a betrayal of personal integrity akin to the witches' accusations. During his own HUAC testimony on June 21, 1956, Miller refused to identify individuals he had observed at communist-front meetings, leading to a conviction (later overturned by the in 1958), which he framed as a stand against inquisitorial overreach. Critics, however, have argued that Miller's portrayal minimized the documented Soviet espionage and communist infiltration in U.S. institutions during the era, such as the cases revealed through declassified decrypts identifying over 300 American spies for the USSR between 1940 and 1948, including figures in government and cultural circles. In his 1971 essay "Are You Now or Have You Ever Been?", Miller contended that accused Hollywood writers posed "no menace to the country" and that anti-communist efforts aimed to discredit socialist ideas wholesale, downplaying the ideological and security risks posed by Soviet-aligned networks amid Stalin's purges, which claimed an estimated 20 million lives from 1929 to 1953. Such statements have been interpreted as , as Miller acknowledged attending meetings of groups like the League of American Writers—a communist front cited by the U.S. in 1947—yet refused to condemn their affiliations or the broader Soviet system's totalitarian practices. Further scrutiny highlights Miller's selective outrage: while decrying McCarthy's tactics, which identified approximately 81 individuals in government with communist ties by 1954, he omitted critique of Stalinist show trials that executed or imprisoned millions on fabricated charges, including the 1936–1938 targeting intellectuals and artists. Conservative analysts, such as those in , have labeled this asymmetry as enabling communist influence by framing domestic vigilance as paranoia, noting Miller's associations with over 20 communist-front organizations in the 1940s without disavowing their pro-Soviet agendas. Although Miller never formally joined the and later expressed disillusionment with Soviet actions in , his defense of unnamed associates—potentially shielding espionage risks—contrasted with his public excoriation of anti-communist measures, contributing to a that equated exaggerated fears with genuine . This stance, critics contend, reflected a broader reluctance to confront communism's causal role in global conflicts, including the (1950–1953), where Soviet-backed forces resulted in over 2.5 million deaths.

Personal Life

Marriages and Romantic Relationships

Arthur Miller married his college sweetheart, Mary Grace Slattery, on August 5, 1940, shortly after graduating from the . The couple had two children: daughter Jane Ellen, born in 1944, and son Robert, born in 1945. Their lasted until 1956, when Miller obtained a in on grounds of mental cruelty after a six-week residency there. During his marriage to Slattery, Miller began a romantic involvement with actress in 1951, which remained intermittent but resumed intensely by 1955. This affair contributed to the breakdown of his first marriage, as Miller left Slattery to pursue Monroe. Following his , Miller wed Monroe in a civil ceremony on June 29, 1956, at the Westchester County Courthouse in , followed by a Jewish rite on July 1. The union, marked by Monroe's personal struggles including miscarriages and dependency on barbiturates, ended in on January 24, 1961. While still married to Monroe, Miller started an affair with Magnum photographer in 1960, during the filming of The Misfits, which he wrote as a for his wife. Morath, assigned to document the production, developed a close relationship with Miller that led to their marriage on February 17, 1962. The couple had two children: daughter Rebecca, born in 1963, and son Daniel, born in 1966 with , whom they raised separately from the family home. This third marriage endured until Morath's death from on January 30, 2002, spanning 40 years and involving collaborative projects such as photo-essays.

Family Dynamics and Personal Struggles

Arthur Miller was born on October 17, 1915, in Manhattan to Isidore Miller, a Polish-Jewish immigrant who operated a women's coat manufacturing business, and Augusta Barnett Miller, a native New Yorker of Jewish descent who managed the household and had aspirations as a playwright. The family initially enjoyed middle-class comfort, residing in Harlem with a summer home, but Isidore's enterprise faltered after the 1929 stock market crash, leading to bankruptcy and relocation to a modest apartment in Brooklyn's Gravesend neighborhood in 1931. Miller, then 16, contributed to family income through manual labor, including warehouse work, amid the Great Depression's widespread unemployment, which Isidore attributed to broader economic betrayal rather than personal failing—a dynamic Miller later explored in plays like Death of a Salesman. He maintained a closer bond with his mother, who encouraged intellectual pursuits, while relations with his father involved unspoken tensions over financial responsibility and ambition, reflected in Miller's portrayal of paternal figures burdened by unfulfilled promises. Miller had an older brother, Kermit (died 2002), and a younger sister, Joan Copeland (born 1922), who pursued acting; the siblings' experiences in a disrupted household underscored themes of familial interdependence amid adversity. In adulthood, Miller's family dynamics revealed strains from his career demands and personal choices. His first marriage to Mary Grace Slattery in 1940 produced two children: Jane Ellen (born September 7, 1944) and Robert Arthur (born May 31, 1947; died March 6, 2022), the latter entering entertainment production. With his third wife, photographer , married in 1962 shortly after divorcing , Miller fathered Rebecca Augusta (born September 1962), who later directed a 2018 documentary portraying their relationship as intimate yet shaped by his emotional reserve. A profound personal struggle emerged with the birth of son Daniel Barnett (born October 1962), who had ; following medical advice common in the era, the infant was placed in a facility and, at age four, transferred to the Southbury Training School in , where he resided for decades with minimal paternal contact—Miller visited sporadically but omitted any public mention during his lifetime. In his 2002 will, Miller equalized inheritance among Daniel, Rebecca, Jane, and Robert, indicating private acknowledgment amid the estrangement. These dynamics, marked by absence and selective involvement, contrasted with Miller's dramatic emphasis on accountability, highlighting unresolved tensions between his ideals and actions.

Final Years and Death

In the 1990s, Miller continued to produce new works, including the plays The Ride Down Mt. Morgan (premiered in in 1991), The Last Yankee (1991), and Broken Glass (1994), which explored themes of personal and moral compromise. He followed these with Mr. Peters' Connections in 1998, reflecting on and existential disconnection amid his advancing age. These later plays received mixed critical reception but demonstrated Miller's persistent engagement with human frailty and ethical dilemmas, often drawing from autobiographical elements. Miller's marriage to photographer Inge Morath, which began in 1962, endured until her death from lymphoma on January 30, 2002, at age 78; the couple had resided together in Roxbury, Connecticut, raising their daughter Rebecca. Following Morath's passing, Miller remained in Roxbury, completing Resurrection Blues (2002), a satirical examination of media and capital punishment, and The Finishing School (published posthumously in 2006 but drafted earlier). His health declined in his final years, compounded by age-related ailments. On February 10, 2005, Miller died at his Roxbury home at age 89 from congestive heart failure, after battling cancer and . He was buried in Roxbury, leaving a legacy of dramatic works that interrogated American and .

Major Works

Stage Plays

Arthur Miller's stage plays, written predominantly between the and , established him as a preeminent American dramatist, focusing on individual amid familial and societal conflicts. His works often drew from realist traditions, incorporating elements of to critique capitalism, authority, and personal denial, with premieres primarily on Broadway under directors like . Early successes like All My Sons and Death of a Salesman garnered critical acclaim and awards, while later plays such as After the Fall reflected evolving concerns with guilt and historical atrocities. All My Sons (1947), Miller's first Broadway success, premiered on January 29, 1947, at the Coronet Theatre, depicting a manufacturer's of defective wartime parts leading to pilots' deaths, exposing themes of paternal legacy and communal accountability. The play ran for 328 performances and won the Award, launching Miller's career by blending domestic realism with ethical interrogation. Death of a Salesman (1949) premiered on February 10, 1949, at the , directed by with as the aging salesman , whose delusions of success culminate in suicide amid family disillusionment. It won the 1949 on May 2, 1949, along with the , and ran for 742 performances, praised for its innovative structure blending memory and reality to indict the American Dream's hollowness. The Crucible (1953), which premiered on January 22, 1953, at the Theatre, dramatizes the 1692 as an allegory for 1950s anti-communist hysteria, portraying mass hysteria, false accusations, and institutional complicity through characters like John Proctor, who resists coerced confessions. It received the (Tony) Award and Donaldson Award, though initial reception was mixed due to its implicit critique of McCarthy-era investigations; Miller drew parallels to (HUAC) tactics, which encouraged betrayal under duress, predating his own 1956 testimony. A View from the Bridge (1955), initially a paired with , premiered on September 29, 1955, at the Coronet Theatre; a revised two-act version opened in on October 11, 1956, under . Set among longshoremen, it examines incestuous tensions, immigration betrayals, and masculine codes through longshoreman Eddie Carbone's downfall, earning a Tony Award in 1956 and highlighting Miller's interest in Greek tragedy's inexorable fate within modern immigrant communities. Miller's later plays shifted toward existential and historical themes. After the Fall (1964), premiering January 23, 1964, at the ANTA Washington Square Theatre, employs a non-linear courtroom-of-the-mind structure to probe a lawyer's guilt over failed relationships and Auschwitz , with some interpreting autobiographical elements tied to Miller's marriage to , though he rejected such readings as reductive. Incident at Vichy (1964), a one-act work opening December 3, 1964, at the ANTA Theatre, stages a 1942 detention in Nazi-occupied where and others await inspection, confronting collaboration, denial, and the psychology of victimhood without resolution. Subsequent works like The Price (1968), which premiered March 7, 1968, at the and explored fraternal resentment over inheritance, sustained Miller's focus on deferred reckonings, though with diminishing commercial success compared to his 1940s-1950s output.

Screenplays and Adaptations

Miller's screenplays included both original works and adaptations of his own plays or external sources. His earliest notable effort, (written in 1950–1951), depicted a Brooklyn longshoreman confronting corrupt union leadership amid Mafia influence on the docks, drawing from real events like the 1939 murder of reformer Pete Panto. Intended for production by with potentially starring, the project was abandoned due to concerns over its portrayal of waterfront crime and labor unrest, which clashed with political sensitivities of the era. The Misfits (1961), an original derived from Miller's 1957 Esquire short story of the same name, explored themes of alienation and obsolescence through characters including a divorced and aging cowboys capturing wild horses in . Written partly as a gift for his wife , the film—directed by and co-starring and —was released on February 1, 1961, marking Monroe's and Gable's final completed roles; production tensions, including Monroe's health issues and script rewrites, contributed to its troubled legacy. In television, Miller penned Playing for Time (1980), a film adaptation of Fania Fénelon's about female musicians forced to perform in the Auschwitz to survive Nazi captivity. Directed by and starring as Fénelon, it aired on September 30, 1980, earning Miller an Emmy for outstanding writing in a limited series, alongside awards for Redgrave's performance and the drama special category. Everybody Wins (1990), adapted by Miller from his 1984 Some Kind of Love Story, centered on a entangled in a small-town cover-up involving seduction and institutional corruption. Directed by and featuring [Debra Winger](/page/Debra Winger) and [Nick Nolte](/page/Nick Nolte), it represented Miller's return to original screenwriting after nearly three decades, though critically mixed for its dense plotting and atmospheric style. Miller also contributed the screenplay for the 1996 film adaptation of , directed by and starring as John Proctor and as Abigail Williams, which updated his 1953 play on the to emphasize historical parallels to ideological purges. Released on November 27, 1996, it received Academy Award nominations for best screenplay adaptation, supporting actress (Ryder), and director. Beyond these, Miller's plays inspired numerous uncredited or third-party screen adaptations, including (1948, directed by Irving Reis) and (1951 film by and 1985 television version with ), though he rarely oversaw their production directly.

Non-Fiction and Essays

Miller's early non-fiction included Situation Normal (1944), a collection of profiles based on interviews with American defense workers and soldiers, informed by his research into wartime conditions and inspired by journalist Ernie Pyle's style. In 1969, he published In Russia, co-authored with his wife, photographer Inge Morath, featuring Miller's prose reflections on Soviet culture, daily life, and encounters with intellectuals during their 1967 visit to the USSR, paired with Morath's images of artists, workers, and urban scenes. Chinese Encounters (1979), another collaboration with Morath, chronicled their 1978 travels in post-Mao , with Miller's text describing meetings with theater practitioners, observations of cultural shifts, and the staging of his plays amid political transition, accompanied by photographs of landscapes and people. His , Timebends: A Life (1987), presents a fragmented, thematic of his upbringing in Depression-era New York, entry into playwriting, political engagements, marriages—including to —and reflections on 20th-century events like the and , extending coverage to the mid-1960s. Miller also wrote extensively in essay form, compiling The Theater Essays of Arthur Miller (1978), which analyzes dramatic structure, the role of tragedy in modern theater, and insights into his own works like . Later volumes, such as Echoes Down the Corridor: Collected Essays, 1944–2000 (2000), encompass pieces on American politics, McCarthyism, , and theatrical innovation, often critiquing societal failures from a perspective shaped by his leftist sympathies. A 2015 Collected Essays edition consolidates selections from these, organized thematically around theater, specific plays, and historical commentary.

Legacy and Critical Reception

Theatrical Influence and Acclaim

Arthur Miller's theatrical career earned widespread acclaim, highlighted by major awards for his early works. (1947) secured a Tony Award for Best Author, while (1949) won both the Tony for Best Play and Best Author, as well as the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. (1953) further added a Tony Award for Best Play. These honors underscored Miller's rapid ascent as a dominant figure in mid-20th-century American theater, with premiering on February 10, 1949, at New York's and achieving 742 performances. Miller's influence extended through his adaptation of tragic form to depict the struggles of everyday Americans, drawing from classical precedents like Greek drama and Ibsen to probe moral dilemmas and societal pressures. His emphasis on personal responsibility amid economic and ethical failures reshaped post-World War II drama, prioritizing over escapist narratives and influencing the portrayal of the common man as a . Plays such as and became benchmarks for examining the American Dream's illusions and the costs of conformity. Revivals of Miller's works continued to garner accolades, including Tony Awards for Best Revival for Death of a Salesman in 1984, 2012, and 2019, demonstrating sustained theatrical relevance. His dramas remain frequently staged in professional, regional, and educational settings globally, with The Crucible among the most performed American plays. This enduring production history reflects Miller's role in elevating moral inquiry in theater, though some contemporary assessments question the depth of his character psychology relative to thematic breadth.

Political and Ideological Critiques

Arthur Miller's ideological alignment with leftist causes, particularly in the , invited critiques for fostering sympathy toward at a time of documented Soviet threats. He contributed approximately 24 theater criticism columns under the Matt Wayne to New Masses, the official organ of the , from 1945 to 1946, where he praised Marxist criticism for pursuing artistic truth and advocated aligning theater with proletarian realism, as in his endorsement of playwrights "cleansing" drama with authentic characters reflective of class struggle. This undisclosed role, uncovered by historian Alan Wald, evidenced deeper party-line adherence than Miller admitted during his 1956 HUAC testimony, where he acknowledged aiding communist-front groups but denied being under "Communist discipline" and refused to identify others who attended meetings with suspected communists. Critics contend this testimony prioritized personal conscience over national security, shielding potential subversives amid revelations from Venona decrypts confirming widespread infiltration, including figures like . In his dramatic works, Miller's anti-capitalist themes elicited ideological rebukes for portraying American economic systems as inherently corrosive to human dignity, often through lenses of Marxist class analysis. Death of a Salesman (1949) depicts protagonist Willy Loman's downfall as a casualty of capitalist commodification, where success metrics like salesmanship erode familial and moral bonds, a narrative praised by leftist interpreters as exposing the "false promises" of the American Dream but faulted by others for reductive determinism that overlooks individual agency and capitalism's empirical record of lifting living standards, as evidenced by post-World War II U.S. prosperity data showing median family income rising from $3,000 in 1947 to over $5,000 by 1950. Similarly, All My Sons (1947) indicts profit-driven wartime profiteering, aligning with Miller's broader oeuvre that equates economic individualism with ethical failure, yet detractors argue such critiques romanticize collectivism while ignoring causal links between free markets and innovation, as in the U.S. patent explosion from 1945–1960 yielding over 500,000 inventions annually. Mainstream academic assessments, often from left-leaning institutions, tend to frame these as universal humanist inquiries, but conservative analysts highlight their propagandistic undertones, substantiated by Miller's own admissions of drawing from radical theater influences. Miller's allegorical assault on in The Crucible (1953), equating HUAC investigations with Salem hysteria, drew sharp ideological fire for minimizing real threats while amplifying perceived excesses. He framed McCarthy-era probes as a "calamity" driven by paranoia rather than evidence, claiming disbelief in "actual or putative traitors" among accused Hollywood leftists, despite declassified archives validating networks involving party members. This perspective, echoed in his later essays, reflected a toward Stalinist atrocities—such as the 1930s claiming 700,000 lives—and Communist Party infiltration, which Miller acknowledged surrounded his circles but dismissed as inconsequential. Such stances contributed to a polarized legacy: while European audiences embraced his amid cultural tolerance for collectivist art, American reception soured, with outlets decrying him as a "Communist stooge" whose moral posturing evaded accountability for enabling ideological adversaries during the , a view persisting as his declined relative to apolitical contemporaries. Later positions, like opposing the escalation in 1965 protests, reinforced perceptions of consistent anti-American interventionism, though these drew less scrutiny than his foundational Marxist flirtations.

Scholarly Reassessments and Enduring Impact

Scholarly reassessments of Arthur Miller's oeuvre have intensified scrutiny of his political entanglements, particularly the 2012 revelation that he authored theater criticism under the pseudonym for the Communist-affiliated New Masses from 1945 to 1946. In these pieces, uncovered by Alan Wald, Miller aligned artistic truth with Marxist orthodoxy, initially supporting a brief under before conforming to stricter party dictates following Browder's ouster. This evidence challenges prior portrayals of Miller as a mere liberal humanist, indicating deeper adherence to Communist discipline and prompting reinterpretations of works such as (1953) as allegories skewed against anti-communist measures, downplaying verified Soviet networks in mid-20th-century America while framing McCarthy-era inquiries as irrational purges. Historians like Ronald Radosh have critiqued Miller's 1956 House Un-American Activities Committee testimony—where he admitted past affiliations but refused to identify others—as emblematic of a broader denial of Stalinist threats, including operations among Hollywood figures, which Miller dismissed as negligible. Such analyses extend to his dramatic critiques of in plays like (1949), where scholarly reevaluations highlight how ideological commitments may have amplified portrayals of systemic betrayal at the expense of individual agency or empirical economic realities. These perspectives, often marginalized in academia's left-leaning institutions, underscore causal links between Miller's worldview and narrative choices, urging a distinction between and propagandistic undertones. Miller's enduring impact endures in American theater through his pioneering "subjective realism," merging expressionistic techniques with to depict tragedy among , influencing playwrights to explore family dynamics as microcosms of societal ills. Core works remain fixtures in global productions and curricula, with performed over 2,000 times on Broadway alone by 2000 and revived frequently thereafter, sustaining dialogues on moral responsibility and the perils of illusion. His essays on drama's continue to inform theater theory, affirming his role in elevating personal amid power structures, even as political deconstructions temper unqualified acclaim.

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