Arthur Miller :: Biographies Bio Biography

A leading American playwright, Arthur Miller, b. New York City, Oct. 17, 1915, has enriched the Broadway stage for several decades. Although Millers dramas take place in familial settings, he has made a theme for dealing with contemporary political and moral issues.Miller began writing plays while a student at the University of Michigan, where several of his dramatic efforts were rewarded with prizes. In 1937, during his senior year, maven of his early plays was presented in Detroit by the Federal airfield Project. In 1944 his The Man Who Had All the Luck won a prize offered by New York Citys Theatre Guild.With his first successes--All My Sons (1947 film, 1948), winner of the Drama Critics Circle Award, and Death of a Salesman (1949 film, 1952), winner of both the Drama Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize--Miller condemned the American ideal of prosperity on the grounds that few can pursue it without making dangerous moral compromises. Death of a Salesman, with its express ionistic overtones, remains Millers most widely admired work. The great social conscience evident in these plays has continued to manifest itself in Millers writing. In the Tony Award-winning The Crucible (1953), for instance, he wrote of the witch-hunts in colonial Salem, Mass., and implied a reduplicate with the congressional investigations into subversion then in progress. The probing psychological tragedy A View from the Bridge (1955) questions the reasonableness of U.S. immigration laws. After the Fall (1964), which includes a thinly disguised portrayal of Millers unhappy marriage to film actress Marilyn Monroe, offers a second, candid consideration of the congressional investigations in which Miller had been personally involved. Two one-act plays, attendant at Vichy (1964) and The Price (1968), deal with the universality of human responsibility and the guilt that often accompanies survival and success.Millers later dramatic works include The Creation of the gentlemans gent leman and Other Business (1972), a play that seemed too openly didactic for both critics and audiences, and The Ride Down Mount Morgan (1991), which opened in London to sundry(a) reviews. Imbued with a passionate morality and demonstrating the absolute need for responsible, loving connections between people, most of Millers work is indeed didactic.Millers writings outside the theater have been prolific and varied. His novel Focus (1945) is an ironic tale of anti-semitism. The screenplay for the Misfits (1961) is only one of several he has written. In 1969 he wrote In Russia, a travel piece with illustrations by his wife, the photographer Inge Morath.