Arthur Miller's Biography

Growing up
 
Arthur Miller was born on October 17th 1915 in New York City to his loving parents Isidore and Augusta Miller. His father, Isidore, worked as a ladies-wear manufacturer and a shopkeeper. His business was ruined in the great depression. Arthur had one sister, Joan, who later in life became an actress and even acted in some of Miller’s plays.

Arthur went to public school in Harlem. He graduated public school and went onto high school in 1928. He went to James Madison high school until he was transferred to Abraham Lincoln high school where he played football and was a mediocre student. He tried to get into the University of Michigan but was rejected on his first try. In 1934 he had saved up enough money to go to the University and was accepted. He first studied Journalism but later decided to major in English. In 1937 before he graduated from University he took a play writing class and wrote many plays, which he received three awards.
 
Odd jobs
 
While Arthur attended high school he helped his father at his business through the summer and worked as a bakery deliverer before school hours. After high school he got a job working as a clerk for an auto-parts warehouse. He saved over half of every pay check he received for four years to go to university.

While he was going to University he worked on a school paper as a reporter and night-editor. He received his Bachelor’s degree in English in 1938. After University he went
on to join the Federal Theater Project in New York City to write radio plays and scripts. In 1939 the Federal theater was shut down and he had to go on relief. In 1941 he took on an extra job working night shift as a shipfitters helper at a Brooklyn Naval Yard. In 1947, to stay in touch with his audience he went to work part-time at an inner city factory, assembling beer boxes for minimum wage.

John K. Hutchens interviewed Arthur Miller for the first time for The New York Times.
 
McCarthy Era
 
The McCarthy era was a period of suspicion in the US during 1950 to 1954 because the
American government was actively trying to counter the alleged American Communist Group. The American Communist Group leadership and other individuals who were suspected of communism or communist sympathizers or even people from all walks of life became victims of aggressive witch-hunts that were often based on inconclusive evidence against them or questionable evidence also. The McCarthy era grew out of the Second Red Scare that started in the 1940's and was named after the US senator Joseph McCarthy who was a republican from Wisconsin.
 
Arthur Miller was affected by the McCarthy era because he was denied employment in the private sector in the US and failed the American government security checks. Arthur Miller was married to Marilyn Monroe to cover up for his communist activities and the Federal Bureau of Investigation followed Miller from 1940 to 1956, in 1956 the Bureau discontinued updating Miller's file.
 
His works
 
He wrote his first play in the summer of 1936. The play was called No Villian.  It was said to have been written for a contest that gave $250 to the first place winner. No Villian also won the Avery Hopewood Award.

While he was working as a shipfitters helper he wrote two plays, Joel Chandler Harris and Captain Paul.  In 1944, he began working on a television show, The Story of G.I Joe. He left the project when he realized the producers were not going to let him write it his way.

In 1944 he published a book about his life experiences called, Situation Normal. Also in 1944 his play, The Man Who Had All The Luck, premiered on Broadway. It closed after 6 performances and 2 previews but still won the Theatre Guide National Award. In 1945 he continues writing radio plays and publishes a second book called, Focus. He also wrote an article, called Should Ezra pound be Shot, for the New Masses.

In 1947 All My Sons premiered and he received two awards. He wrote the Death of a Salesman in 1948 in his Connecticut studio. A year later Death of a Salesman was premiered and won the Pulitzer Prize, the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award, the Antoinette Perry Award, the Donaldson Award, the Theater Club Award, and many more. The New York Times published his essay called “Tragedy and the Common Man”. In 1950 the first sound recording of Death of a Salesman was completed and a year later the first film production of Death of a Salesman was also completed for Columbia Pictures. In 1953 the Crucible premiered and received the Antoinette Perry Award and the Donaldson Award. He also tried to direct an All My Sons production at a summer theater in Delaware.

In 1957 he received the honorary Doctor of Human Letters from the University of Michigan. In 1959 he received the gold medal for drama from the National Institute of Arts and Letters. He became elected president of P.E.N, which is the International Literary Organization. He retired from the P.E.N after four years. In 1984 Miller received the Kennedy Center Honors for his lifetime achievements. He also won the Mellon Banks Award 7 years later, in 1991. In 1995 Miller one another award called the William Inge Festival Award for his distinguished achievement in American theater.

He won another award in 1996 called the Edward Albee Last Frontier Playwright Award. In 1998 he won two Tony’s for A view from the bridge. During the same year he was labeled a Distinguished Inaugural Senior Fellow in Berlin. The University of Michigan and the Arthur Miller center held large celebrations for Miller’s 85th birthday. Over the next 4 years he received 4 more awards for his playwrighting.
 
His travels
 
In 1939 Arthur traveled to North Carolina to research information for a play that he was writing. He carried on writing plays and traveling the world to get the information he
needed for the plays he was writing. He bought himself a farmhouse in Roxbury, Connecticut for a vacation home. He also built himself a small studio in Connecticut in 1948.

He traveled to Europe to get some background information for another play that he was writing, he also met some Jewish death camp survivors who were being held captive. He attended a pro-Soviet Cultural and Scientific Conference for world peace so that he could chair an arts panel. In 1952 he visited a museum to research for the Crucible. 

In 1954 he was asked to attend a premiere of the crucible but could not make it since the US denied his passport. Miller was planning on doing a film about the juvenile delinquency in New York but the HUAC pressured city officials to withdraw permission for Miller to continue with the film. In 1951 he was subpoenaed to appear before the HUAC. In 1954 he was convicted for contempt for not naming names to the Un-Americans activity Committee. A year later the courts overturned his convictions for contempt.

Millers work was banned in Soviet Union because in 1969 he went to Czechoslovakia to show support for the writers there. His work was banned from trying to free the dissident writers. In 1977 he sent petitions to the Czechoslovakian government to halt arrests of dissident writers. Arthur Miller went to the Soviet Union to discuss the soviets policies. Tributes were held in England and America to celebrate his eightieth birthday.
 
His family
 
He married his first wife, Mary Slattery in 1939 and his daughter, Jane Miller, was born five years later in 1944. His son, Robert is born.

In 1950 he met Marilyn Monroe for the first time and Igne Morath comes to live in America. A year later Miller moved to Nevada for 6 weeks to divorce Marry Slattery. Later that year he married Marilyn Monroe. In 1961 he divorced Marilyn Monroe. A year later he married Inge Morath, Marilyn Monroe dies, and his new wife gives birth to his son Daniel. The next year they had another baby girl named Rebecca.

Arthur Miller’s father died in 1966. Arthur Miller passed away in his Connecticut home from heart failure.
 
Death of a Salesman
 
I think death of a salesman is an important play because it is not based on reality but someone’s view of reality. Everything that happened in the play could have happened in real life and I think that’s what made it important to society. Another thing that made it a success is how Arthur Miller wrote the play, he did a great job at making people think. He did not write the play so that everybody would know right from the start what was happening and why it happened. It made people think from the beginning to the end and probably even after they got home.
 

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     Bibliography
 
Arthur Miller Society. “A Brief Chronology of Arthur Miller’s Life and
Works”, August 30 2005; August 24, 2006: http://www.ibiblio.org/miller/life.html.
 
Wikipedia. “Arthur Miller”, August 24 2006; August 24 2006:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Miller
 
Wikipedia. “McCarthyism”, August 23 2006; August 24 2006:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism

This article was written by Jenny Hanna, 2006.