Arthur Miller

Arthur Miller

Early Life & Education

Born 17 October 1915, to Polish-Jewish immigrants Augusta and Isidore Miller, Arthur Asher Miller was the second of three children. His older brother Kermit was very much like their father, tall, fair skinned and blue eyes and he was akin to his mother, darker with deep hued hair and eyes. Three years his senior, Kermit was also like his father in that the fanciful nature of the young Arthur was met with mild annoyance. This divide between the more serious father and elder son and the dreamy mother and younger son would become a great source for Miller to pull from in his writing; the relationship of brothers on two different life tracks become a running theme through many of his plays.

Miller, his mother Augusta and brother Kermit

At the time of Arthur’s birth, Isidore Miller was a successful businessman, owning a woman’s clothing manufacturing company and employing 400 people, many of whom were Miller’s own family. The entire family, uncles, cousins, and grandparents, relied on the success of Isidore’s business and for a number of years they all enjoyed prosperity. They lived in a large house in Harlem and had a summer house in Far Rockaway, Queens and had a driver. By 1929, however, everything would be lost in The Crash.

Isidore, Kermit and Augusta Miller

The family moved from a lavish house in Harlem to a modest place in Flatbush, Brooklyn when Arthur was 12. There, Miller delivered bread in the mornings before school to help support the family financially. While enrolled in Abraham Lincoln High School, unlike Kermit, he was not a very studious child and instead preferred playing football to reading and spent his free time, when he wasn’t working odd jobs, running, skating with the other kids in the neighborhood. During his senior year of high school in 1932, Miller became acquainted with Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. This book revolutionized his thinking and awakened a passion for literature. Miller decided then that he would be a writer and attempted to enroll in college but because of his record of suspension, failing grades and contentious relationships with his teachers, he was not admitted. He set out then to find work. First, he began working with his father who had attempted to resuscitate his garment business, but found salesman work dehumanizing. He then became a crooner for a Brooklyn radio station. He left this radio after only a few months and took a job at an auto-parts warehouse. He saved his money from this job to reapply to college.

This was his third attempt to enroll in university and he was finally admitted after he wrote a persuasive letter to the dean of the University of Michigan, stating that he would apply himself to his studies in a way that he hadn’t in high school. He majored first in journalism, writing for Michigan Daily. In 1936, Miller wrote his first play No Villain which was awarded the university’s Avery Hopwood Award. The following year, he won it again for his play Honors at Dawn. His senior year, he was awarded the Theatre Guild award for his play They Too Arise and in June 1938, he graduated and moved to NY to participate in the New Deal program –the New York Federal Theatre project.

Marriage and Fatherhood

In 1940, Miller married Mary Grace Slattery, his college sweetheart who also graduated from the University of Michigan. The two settled down in Brooklyn with their two children; a daughter, Jane, born in 1944 and a son, Robert who followed in 1947. By all accounts, Mary was a deeply intellectual and intelligent woman who supported Miller and their family while he wrote by working as a waitress and a secretary.

Miller, Mary Grace, Jane and Robert

While visiting the set of As Young as You Feel with director Kazan in 1951, Arthur was introduced to Marilyn Monroe. A few weeks later, the two were attending the same dinner party. The two became fast friends and kept in contact – even secretly dating for most of 1955 - and in 1956, Miller divorced Mary Grace Slattery and married Marilyn just months later. Their marriage began like a dream, with Monroe taking a hiatus from the screen and the couple splitting their time between a NY apartment and a farmhouse in Connecticut. Monroe converted to Judaism and become very close with Miller’s family.

Miller and Monroe on their wedding day

In 1957, however, Marilyn had her first of two unsuccessful pregnancies because of complications from endometriosis. She was hospitalized not long after from a barbiturate overdose. In 1959, while filming Let’s Make Love, Monroe had an affair with her co-star Yves Montand. In 1960, she starred in the Miller penned film The Misfits and this project would mark the end of their marriage for many reasons. Marilyn felt that Miller had written a character that was less important than her male co-stars and resented the fact that some of the details had been pulled from her own life. And the presence of a photographer named Inge Morath on set complicated things further as in just two years, she would become the third Mrs. Miller.

Miller and Monroe were granted a quick divorce in Mexico in 1961. The following August, Marilyn would die of a drug overdose. Miller's play After the Fall is rumored to be about their marriage.

Arthur married Inge Morath in February of 1962. The two would remain married until Inge’s death in 2002 and the couple had two children; a daughter, Rebecca, born in 1962 and a son born in 1966 named Daniel. Daniel was born with Downs Syndrome and Miller insisted that he be institutionalized. He would not have much contact with his youngest son throughout his life until his son in law Daniel Day Lewis – who had an extreme fondness for him – encouraged the two to reconnect. Inge and Miller would complete many journalistic projects together, most notably In Russia and Chinese Encounters which detailed the happenings of their travels in both countries.

Miller and Morath Miller and an infant Rebecca

Miller, Morath and Rebecca in 1987

In late 2004, after Inge's death, Miller moved 34 year old painter Agnes Barley into their family home and announced that the couple planned to marry. His daughter Rebecca disapproved of the relationship but Barley continued to live with Miller until his death in February 2005.

Miller and Agnes Barley

Social and Political Views

Miller began as a Marxist. In his autobiography Timebends, he recounts a story of a time he and his brother were outside of a neighborhood store playing stickball when a random stranger, whom he assumed was a college student, came up to him and began speaking about Marxism. He was immediately enchanted by the idea of a society without the constraints of class - that offered economic freedom for all. This could be in part because of the great losses his family suffered after The Crash. Socialist and Marxist ideas became the themes of many of his plays – striving for some economic revolution, however personal, was the focus of some of his most successful works, including Death of Salesman, All My Sons and The Price. Each of these plays is inherently critical of the “The American Dream”.

Elia Kazan and Miller

This criticism and his connection to Elia Kazan and his Communist comrades landed Miller in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee in the midst of the McCarthy Era Red Scare. After seeing his dear friend attacked by HUAC, Miller wrote The Crucible, a play which likens the actions of the American government to the Salem Witch Trials. When Kazan was called in front of the Committee, unwilling to risk his career, he named names and effectually ended his relationship with Miller in a moment. In an act of bravery, in a time where McCarthyism was launching a very public attack on many Americans, causing loss of career and at times, loss of life, when Miller appeared before the Committee, he refused to give up any names. The risk of his loyalty was great and he is remembered for his sacrifice.

Miller appears before HUAC

Later in life, after he married Inge Morath, he and his wife traveled to the Soviet Union and to Communist China. There they worked with many artists and other laborers to advocate for better working conditions and freedoms. Because of his advocacy for dissident writers, his work was banned in the Soviet Union. He also advocated for artistic and journalistic freedom for writers in the Czech Republic, Iran and Russia. Citing his own unfounded investigation as the impetus, Miller also successfully advocated for the release of Peter Riley, an American man who was wrongfully convicted of the murder of his mother.

Miller appearing before HUAC

The Price

Complete Works

Career Timeline

· 1915 Arthur Miller is born, October 17, to Isadore and Augusta Miller. He is the second of three children.

· 1928 The Great Depression causes the Millers’ family business to fail and they move to Brooklyn NY

· 1932 Miller graduates from Abraham Lincoln High School and does not get into college so goes to work in an auto parts warehouse.

· 1934 Miller enrolls in University of Michigan as a journalism major

· 1936 Receives Hopwood Awards in Drama for No Villain

· 1937 Receives Hopwood Awards in Drama for Honors at Dawn and Theatre Guild Bureau of New Plays Award for They Too Arise

· 1938 Graduates from University of Michigan

· 1939 Co-Authors Listen My Children with Norma Rosten as a part of the New York Federal Theater Project.

· 1940 Marries Mary Grace Slattery

· 1944 September 7, Mary gives birth to Miller’s first child – a daughter named Jane. Miller also tours army camps across the country and writes the screenplay The Story of G.I. Joe and publishes his journals from the journey, Situation Normal. He also published and produced The Man Who Had All the Luck and wins a Theatre Guild National Award

· 1945 Publishes his first novel, Focus

· 1947 May, 31 his son Robert is born. All My Sons opens on Broadway in January, receives a Drama Critics Circle Award

· 1949 Death of a Salesman opens on Broadway and wins the New York Drama Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize

· 1950 Miller’s adaptation of An Enemy of the People opens on Broadway

· 1953 The Crucible opens on Broadway

· 1956 Divorces Mary Grace Slattery and marries Marilyn Monroe. Appears in front of the House Committee on Unamerican Activities. Awarded an honorary degree at the University of Michigan.

· 1957 Found in contempt of Congress for refusing to name any of his colleagues at the HUAC hearings

· 1958 Contempt of Congress ruling overturned. Misfits movie, starring Marilyn Monroe, is filmed. Elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters

· 1959 Awarded Gold Medal for Drama

· 1961 Divorces Marilyn Monroe

· 1962 Marries Ingeborg Morath. Marilyn Monroe dies.

· 1963 Begins work on After the Fall. His daughter Rebecca is born

· 1964 After the Fall opens at the ANTA-Washington Square Theatre. Incident of Vichy opens at Lincoln Center

· 1965 Miller is elected president of International PEN

· 1966 Death of Salesman film airs on CBS

· 1968 The Price opens on Broadway

· 1969 Miller’s work is banned in the Soviet Union after he campaigns for the freedom of dissident writers

· 1970 Brendies University honors him with a Creative Arts Award Medal. Russia bans all of Miller’s works in reaction to the publication of In Russia

· 1972 The Creation of the World and Other Business opens and closes after only 20 performances

· 1973 Miller becomes an adjunct professor in residence at the University of Michigan

· 1974 Advocates for World Amnesty Year

· 1975 Campaigns against the imprisonment and torture of writers in Iran. Appears before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations to support the freedom of writers throughout the world

· 1976 Successfully advocates for Peter Reilly, who had been wrongfully convicted of murder by putting pressure on the judicial system. All charges are dropped

· 1977 In the Country , with photographs by Inge Morath is published in response to the request by oppressed Czech writers for his help.

· 1978 Miller and his wife visit the People’s Republic of China. The Theater Essays of Arthur Miller is published

· 1979 The Price is revived on Broadway. Chinese Encounters is published

· 1980 The American Clock opens on Broadway

· 1981 Publishes Playing for Time

· 1982 Elegy for a Lady and Some Kind of Love Story open in New Haven

· 1983 Death of a Salesmen opens in China. NYU awards Miller with the Bobst Award Medal

· 1984 Publishes “Salesman” in Beijing. Death of a Salesman is revived on Broadway. He and his wife are awarded honorary doctorates from the University of Hartford

· 1987 Miller’s autobiography Timebends is published

· 1996 The Crucible film opens

· 1998 The fiftieth anniversary revival of Death of a Salesman opens to great success on Broadway

· 1999 Miller is awarded The Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize

· 2001 Miller receives the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters

· 2002 Miller is awarded Spain’s Principe de Asturias Prize for Literature

· 2004 Ingrid Morath dies of cancer at the age of 78.

· 2004 Miller’s final play Finishing the Picture opens at the Goodman Theatre

· February 10, 2005 Arthur Asher Miller dies of bladder cancer and heart failure in Roxbury Connecticut at age of 89.