"The American Dream is the largely unacknowledged
screen in front of which all American writing
plays itself out.”
Image courtesy of Wikipedia via the U.S. Department of State
Accomplishments
 Great American playwright, novelist, and screenwriter
 Considered one of the 20th century’s three great
American dramatists – Tennessee Williams, Eugene
O’Neill
 Awards:
Pulitzer Prize
Tony Award
Emmy Award
Peabody Award
Kennedy Lifetime
Achievement Award
 His work often questions “death and betrayal and
injustice and how we are to account for this little life
of ours”
Background
 Arthur Asher Miller:
 Born – NYC, 1915
 Died – Roxbury, CT, 2005
 Worked series of odd jobs during Great Depression
to make ends meet & pay for college
 Graduated from University of Michigan in 1938
 Began writing plays while in school
 Worked in the Brooklyn Navy Yard and wrote radio
scripts during WWII, while struggling to write plays
and novels
Professional Life
 First successful play, The Man Who Had All The Luck, hit
Broadway in 1944
 Established himself as an eminent playwright with All My
Sons (1947)
 Most celebrated play, Death of a Salesman (1949) won Miller
the Pulitzer Prize for Drama
 Followed by The Crucible (1953) for which he won a Tony
award
 Other notable works: A View From The Bridge (1955), After
the Fall (1964), The Price (1968)
 Adapted both Death of a Salesman and The Crucible to film in
1985 and 1995, respectively
P
Also famous for…
 Already a public person, Miller married Marilyn Monroe
in 1956 (his second wife)
 Tumultuous marriage, divorced
in 1961
 Faced high media scrutiny for
marrying the country’s most
beautiful woman
 Married again in 1962 to Inga Morath, with whom he
remained until her death in 2002
Reception
 Following his success with All My Sons and Death of a
Salesman, Miller’s personal beliefs were shoved into
the limelight
 He revealed to be politically liberal-leaning, as
conveyed in his controversial subject matter
 A large target for the House of Un-American
Activities Committee during the Red Scare
Information found on:
- http://www.neh.gov/whoweare/miller/biography.html
- http://www.kennedy-center.org/explorer/artists/?
entity_id=3762&source_type=a-