The Death of a Salesman
by: Arthur Miller
Amanda Morteo
Gina Wachowiak
Lindsay Talamantes
Alvaro Blanco
Mikal Swanson
Vage Gyulnazaryan
Arthur Miller
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Born in New York
October 17th, 1915
Lived during the
depression
He is not dead yet
PERSONAL LIFE
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Lost his fortune in the stock
market crash of 1929
began working at a number of
jobs to support himself
after the depression he began
independent study and started
reading on his own
went to the university of
Michigan where he became
interested in writing plays
married 3 times
1st to Mary Grace in 1940 were
he had two children
2nd to Marilyn Monroe in 1956
3rd to Inge Morath in 1962 were
they had one child
Aurthur Miller’s Plays
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After the Fall
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All My Sons
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The Archbishop's Ceiling/The American Clock
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An Enemy of the People Broken Glass
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The Creation of the World and Other Business
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The Crucible: A Play in Four Acts
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The Crucible: Screenplay
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Danger: Memory!: Two Plays: I Can't Remember Anything, Clara
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Death of a Salesman: Certain Private Conversations in Two Acts and a
Requiem
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Elegy For a Lady Everybody Wins: A Screenplay Incident at Vichy
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The Last Yankee: With a New Essay About Theatre Language
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A Memory of Two Mondays
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Mr. Peters' Connections
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Playing for Time
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The Price
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The Ride Down Mt. Morgan
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Some Kind of Love Story A View from the Bridge
Arthurs’ life
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1920-28 Attends Public School #24 in Harlem.
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1923 Sees first play--a melodrama at the Schubert Theater.
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1928 Bar-mitzvah at the Avenue M temple.
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1929 Father's business fails and family move to Brooklyn.
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1932 Graduates from Abraham Lincoln High School. Registers for night school at City College,
but quits after two weeks.
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1932 Various jobs, including singing on a local radio station and truck driving.
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1932-34 Clerked in an auto-parts warehouse, where he was the only Jew employed and had his
first real, personal experiences of American anti-semitism.
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1934-35 University of Michigan, studying journalism. Reporter and night editor on student
paper, The Michigan Daily.
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1936 Writes No Villain in six days and receives Hopwood Award in Drama. Transfers to an
English major.
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1937 Takes playwrighting class with Professor Kenneth T. Rowe. Rewrite of No Villain, titled,
They Too Arise, receives a major award from the Bureau of New Plays and is produced in Ann
Arbor and Detroit. Honors at Dawn receives Hopwood Award in Drama. Drives Ralph Neaphus
East to join the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in Spain during their Civil War, and decides not to
go with him.
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1938 The Great Disobedience receives second place in the Hopwood contest. They Too
Arise is revised and titled The Grass Still Grows for anticipated production in New York
City. Graduates with a B.A. in English. Joins the Federal Theater Project in New York
City to write radio plays and scripts, having turned down a much better paying offer to
work as a scriptwriter for Twentieth Century Fox, in Hollywood.
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1939 Writes Listen My Children, with Norman Rosten.
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1940 Marries Mary Grace Slattery. Writes The Golden Years. Meets Clifford Odets in a
second-hand bookstore. Travels to North Carolina to collect dialect speech for the folk
division of the Library of Congress.
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1941 Takes extra job working as a shipfitter's helper at the Brooklyn Naval Yard. Writes
The Pussycat and the Plumber Who Was a Man, a radio play for Columbia Workshop
(CBS), and other radio playsWilliam Ireland's Confession, Joel Chandler Harris, Captain
Paul.
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1942 Writes radio plays The Battle of the Ovens, Thunder fron the Mountains, I Was
Married in Bataan, Toward a Farther Star, The Eagle's Nest, and The Four Freedoms.
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1943 Writes The Half-Bridge, and one-act, That They May Win, produced in New York
City. Writes Listen for the Sound of Wings (radio play).
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1944 Daughter, Jane, is born. Writes radio plays Bernadine, I Love You, Grandpa and t he
Statue, and The Phillipines Never Surrendered. Adapts Ferenc Molnar's The Guardsman
and Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice for the radio. Having toured army camps to
research for The Story of G.I. Joe (a film for which he wrote the initial draft screenplay,
but later withdrew from project when he saw they would not let him write it his way), he
publishes book about experience, Situation Normal. The Man Who Had All The Luck
premiers on Broadway but closes after six performances, though receives the Theater
Guild National Award.
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1945 Focus (novel) published. Writes Listen for the Sound of Wings (radio play). Writes
"Should Ezra Pound Be Shot?" for New Masses (article).
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1946 Adapts George Abbott's and John C. Holm's Three Men on a Horse for radio.
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1947 All My Sons premiers and receives the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award, and
the Donaldson Award. Son, Robert, is born. Writes The Story of Gus (radio play). Writes
"Subsidized Theatre" for The New York Times (article). Goes to work for a short time in
an inner city factory assembling beer boxes for minimum wage to stay in touch with his
audience. Gives first interview to John K. Hutchens, for The New York Times. Explores
the Red Hook area and tries to get into the world of the longshoremen there, and find out
about Pete Panto, whose story would form the nucleus of his screenplay The Hook.
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1948 Built himself the small Connecticut studio in which he wrote Death of a Salesman.
Trip to Europe with Vinny Longhi where got sense of the Italian background he would
use for the Carbones and their relatives, also met some Jewish deathcamp survivors held
captive in a post-war tangle of bureaucracy.
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1949 Death of a Salesman premiers and receives the Pulitzer Prize, the New York Drama
Critics' Circle Award, the Antoinette Perry Award, the Donaldson Award, and the
Theater Club Award, among others. New York Times publishes "Tragedy and the
Common Man" (essay). Attends the pro-Soviet Cultural and Scientific Conference for
World Peace at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel to chair an arts panel with Odets and Dmitri
Shostakovich.
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1950 Meets Marilyn Monroe for the first time. Adaption of Henrik Ibsen'sAn Enemy of
the People premiers. The Hook fails to reach production due to pressure from HUAC.
First sound recording of Death of a Salesman.
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1951-52 US Tour of Death of a Salesman.
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1952 Visits the Historical Society "Witch Museum" in Salem, to research for The
Crucible.
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1953 The Crucible premiers and receives the Antoinette Perry Award, and the Donaldson
Award. Tried his hand at directing, a production of All My Sons for the Arden, Delaware,
summer theatre. Asked to attend the Belgian premier of The Crucible, but unable to
attend as denied passport by the US.
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1954 First radio production of Death of a Salesman, on NBC.
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1955 The one-act A View From the Bridge premiers in a joint bill with A Memory of Two
Mondays. HUAC pressured city officials to withdraw permission for Miller to make a
film he'd been planning about New York juvenile delinquency.
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1956 Lives in Nevada for six weeks in order to divorce Mary Slattery and gets the
material for The Misfits. Marries Marilyn Monroe. Subpoenaed to appear before HUAC.
Receives honorary Doctor of Human Letters (L.H.D.) from the University of Michigan.
Goes to England with Monroe and meets Laurence Olivier. Revises A View From the
Bridge into two acts for Peter Brook to produce in London, England.
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1957 Arthur Miller's Collected Plays published. Convicted of contempt of Congress for
refusing to name names to the House Un-American Activities Committee. Short story
"The Misfits" is published in Esquire. First television production of Death of a Salesman,
on ITA, England.
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1958 United States Court of Appeals overturns his contempt conviction. Elected to the
National Institute of Arts and Letters.
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1959 Receives the Gold Medal for Drama from the National Institute of Arts and Letter
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1961 Divorces Marilyn Monroe. Misfits (film) premiers. Recorded The Crucible: An
Opera in Four Acts by Robert Ward and Bernard Stambler. Sidney Lumet directs a
movie version of View From a Bridge. Mother, Augusta Miller dies.
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1962 Marries Inge Morath. Marilyn Monroe dies.
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1963 Daughter, Rebecca, is born. Jane's Blanket (children's book) published.
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1964 After visiting the Mauthausen death camp with Inge, covered the Nazi trials
in Frankfurt, Germany for the New York Herald Tribune. After the Fall and
Incident at Vichy premier.
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1965 Elected president of International P.E.N., the international literary
organization, and went to Yugoslavian conference. Ulu Grosbard's Off-Broadway
production of A View from the Bridge.
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1966 First sound recording of A View From the Bridge. Father, Isidore Miller dies.
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1967 I Don't Need You Anymore (short stories) published. Sound recording of
Incident at Vichy. Television production of The Crucible, on CBS. Visited Moscow to
persuade Soviet writers to join P.E.N.
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1968 The Price premiers. Attends the Democratic National Convention in Chicago
as the delegate from Roxbury. Sound recording of After the Fall.
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1969 In Russia published (reportage with photographs by Inge Morath). Visited
Czechoslovakia to show support for writers there and briefly met Václav Havel.
Retired as President of P.E.N.
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1970 One acts Fame and The Reason Why produced. Miller's works are banned in
the Soviet Union as a result of his work to free dissident writers.
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1971 Sound recording of An Enemy of the People. Television productions of A
Memory of Two Mondays, on PBS and The Price, on NBC. The Portable Arthur
Miller is published.
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1972 The Creation of the World and Other Business premiers. Attends the
Democratic National Convention in Miami as a delegate. First sound recording of
The Crucible.
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1973 Television production of Incident at Vichy, on PBS.
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1974 Up From Paradise (musical version of The Creation of the World and Other
Business ) premiers at the University of Michigan. Television production of After
the Fall, on NBC.
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1977 In the Country published (reportage with Inge Morath). Miller petitions the
Czech government to halt arrests of dissident writers. The Archbishop's Ceiling
premiers in Washington, D.C.
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1978 The Theater Essays of Arthur Miller, edited by Robert A. Martin published.
Fame (film) appears on NBC. Belgian National Theatre does 25th anniversary
production of The Crucible, and this time Miller can attend.
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1979 Chinese Encounters published (reportage with Inge Morath).
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1980 Playing for Time (film) appears on CBS. The American Clock premiers at the
Spoleto Festical in South Carolina, then opens later in New York City. TV film
Arthur Miller on Home Ground ahown on PBS.
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1981 The second volume of Arthur Miller's Collected Plays published.
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1982 One acts Elegy for a Lady and Some Kind of Love Story are produced under
the title 2 by A.M. in Connecticut.
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1983 Directs Death of a Salesman at the People's Art Theater in Beijing, the
People's Republic of China.
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1984 Salesman in Beijing is published. Elegy and Some Kind are published under
the new title Two-Way Mirror. Miller receives Kennedy Center Honors for his
lifetime achievement.
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1985 Death of a Salesman with Dustin Hoffman airs on CBS to an audience of 25
million. Miller goes to Turkey with Harold Pinter for International PEN. A delegate
at a meeting of Soviet and American writers in Vilnius, Lithuania, where tried to
persuade the Soviets to stop persecuting writers.
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1986 I Think About You a Great Deal is published (monologue). One of fifteen
writers and scientists invited to the Soviet Union to conference with Mikhail
Gorbachov and discuss Soviet policies. British production of The Archbishop's
Ceiling, with a restored script.
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1987 One acts I Can't Remember Anything and Clara are produced under the
titleDanger: Memory! Publishes Timebends: A Life (autobiography), which
appeared as a Book -of the-Month Club popular selection. University of East
Anglia names its centre for American studies, the Arthur Miller Centre. The Golden
Years is premiered on BBC Radio. Television production of All My Sons, on PBS.
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1990 Everybody Wins, a film based on Some Kind, is released. Television production
of An Enemy of the People, on PBS.
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1991 The one-act The Last Yankee is produced. The Ride Down Mt. Morgan is
premiered in London, England. Receives Mellon Bank Award for lifetime
achievement in the humanities. Television production of Clara, and an interview on
A&E. South Bank Show television special on Miller.
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1992 Homely Girl is published (novella).
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1993 Expanded version of The Last Yankee premiers. Television production of The
American Clock, on TNT.
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1994 Broken Glass premiers. Interviewed on The Charley Rose Show, PBS.
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1995 Receives William Inge Festival Award for distinguished achievement in
American theater. Tributes to the playwright on the occasion of his eightieth
birthday are held in England and America. Homely Girl, A Life and Other Stories is
published (novella and short stories).
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1996 Receives the Edward Albee Last Frontier Playwright Award. Revised and
expanded book of Theater Essays, edited by Steven R. Centola is published.
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1997 Revised version of The Ride Down Mt. Morgan is given its American Premier
in Williamstown, MA. The Crucible (film with Daniel Day Lewis) opens. BBC
television production of Broken Glass.
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1998 Mr. Peter's Connections premiers. Major revival of A View From the Bridge
wins two Tony Awards. Is named as the Distinguished Inaugural Senior Fellow of
the American Academy in Berlin. Revised version of The Ride Down Mt. Morgan
appears on Broadway.
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1999 Death of a Salesman revived on Broadway for the play's 50th anniversary, and
wins Tony for Best Revival of a Play.
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2000 The Ride Down Mount Morgan appears again on Broadway, also a revival of
The Price. There are major 85th birthday celebrations for Miller held at University
of Michigan and at the Arthur Miller Center at UEA, England. Echoes Down the
Corridor is published (collected essays from 1944-2000).
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2001 Untitled, a previously unpublished one act written for Vaclav Havel appears in
New York. Williamstown Theater Festival revives The Man Who Had All the Luck.
Focus, a film based on the book, is released. Miller is awarded a NEH Fellowship
and the John H. Finley Award for Exemplary Service to New York City. On Politics
and the Art of Acting is published (essay).
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2002 New York City revivals of The Man Who Had All the Luck and The Crucible.
Inge Morath dies. Premier of Resurrection Blues.
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2003 Awarded the Jerusalem Prize. Brother, Kermit Miller dies on October
17th.
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2004 New York City revival of After the Fall. Premier of Finishing the
Picture.
Quotes
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Everybody likes a
kidder, but nobody
lends him money.
The jungle is dark
but full of
diamonds... Death
of a Salesman
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Maybe all one can do is
hope to end up with the
right regrets.
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Can anyone remember
love? It's like trying to
summon up the smell of
roses in a cellar. You
might see a rose, but
never the perfume.