The Jewish-American playwright Arthur Miller wrote several masterpieces, exploring themes like the psychological toll of capitalism and the American Dream. His private life was full of ups and downs. While he gained fame and recognition for his writing during his lifetime, he was also a victim of Senator McCarthy and his unjust persecution of various celebrities. His short-lived marriage to Marilyn Monroe and his refusal to go to her funeral also made him a part of newspaper headlines more than once.
Who Was Arthur Miller?
Arthur Miller was a key 20th-century playwright, who made his way all the way to the top of New York’s intellectual circles and into the crème de la crème of Hollywood. Among other things, he wrote over 30 plays including The Crucible and Death Of A Salesman. He also wrote various screenplays and essays. Born in 1915, Arthur Miller was part of a generation that lived through a particularly tumultuous time in history. During his lifetime, the writer witnessed the Great Depression, two world wars, the Cold War, and the battle between communist and capitalist ideologies.
His private life was no less tumultuous. He married (and divorced) Marilyn Monroe and experienced the highs and lows that come along with writing for the fickle American public. In 1954, at the height of America’s Red Scare, he was one of the many artists invited to appear in front of the Committee on Un-American Activities as a suspected communist. But despite all of these ups and downs, Arthur Miller remained a key voice among the New York intelligentsia until his death in 2005. Here are 10 things you should know about the Jewish-American writer and his work.
1. Arthur Miller’s Father Lost Everything During the Great Depression
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Sign up to our Free Weekly NewsletterArthur Miller was the son of a self-made man who owned a factory with over 400 workers. However, once the Great Depression struck in 1929, Miller’s family lost almost everything. Experiencing such a drastic shift in wealth must have affected the teenage boy on a deep level. His famous play, Death Of A Salesman, which is about the death of the American Dream, seems to draw on this experience. It also meant that the young Arthur Miller went from driving around in a chauffeur-driven car to having to deliver bread in the mornings to support his struggling family.
2. His First Broadway Play Was a Flop
Arthur Miller went on to study journalism at the University of Michigan. After winning an award for a play he wrote during his student days, Miller decided to study English and pursue a career as a playwright instead. His first professionally produced play was The Man Who Had All The Luck. The plot of Miller’s piece focuses on an auto mechanic, for whom everything seems to work out well against all odds. But instead of enjoying his good fortune, the protagonist descends into feelings of guilt and existential angst. Unfortunately, the luck of his protagonist did not extend to Miller himself. The play turned out to be a huge flop on Broadway and had to be closed down after only four performances.
3. His Second Play Earned Him a Tony Award
Luckily, Arthur Miller did not let his early failures derail him, and he decided to give playwriting one last shot. His second play All My Sons ran for 328 performances and earned Miller his first Tony Award. All My Sons centers on the businessman Joe Keller. As we find out throughout the play, his greed has caused him to sell faulty engines to the military, causing several soldiers to die. The play was based on a true story and is commonly thought to be critical of both capitalism and the American Dream. It also catapulted Arthur Miller to the top of New York’s theater scene.
4. Miller Wrote a Part of His Play in One Day
When asked how long it took him to write his masterpiece, Death Of A Salesman, Arthur Miller stated that it took him “one day and a night.” However, writing the second act would take the playwright significantly longer. Death Of A Salesman centers on the aging salesman Willy Loman, whose family life and professional success turn out to be little more than a facade. The play, which questions the concept of the American Dream, has since become a classic in theaters and continues to be studied in school curricula across the world. Death Of A Salesman premiered in 1949 and won Arthur Miller his second Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Having written two of his best-known works by the age of 33, Arthur Miller had firmly established himself as a writer who was unafraid to criticize the American value system.
5. He Was Denied a Renewal of His Passport
As it turned out, not everyone was happy with Arthur Miller’s socio-critical content. In the 1950s, he was called to appear in front of the House Committee on Un-American Activities on the grounds of being a suspected communist. Miller sympathized with certain communist ideas, and many of his plays questioned American values. This was enough to make Senator Joseph McCarthy, who claimed that America’s elite had been infiltrated by communist agents, place him on a list of potentially dangerous elements.
As 1950s America was overtaken by the so-called Red Scare, various politicians and artists were accused of being communists. When Miller applied for a routine renewal of his passport, the House Committee of Un-American Activities used the opportunity to invite him for a hearing. During the hearing, Miller was questioned about meetings he had attended over 15 years earlier. While he did admit to having attended various left-leaning gatherings as well as studying Marxist ideas, he refused to answer any questions about other participants of these gatherings.
Miller’s unwillingness to cause any trouble to his peers had grave consequences. In 1957 his passport was taken away. He was also sentenced to a fine and a prison sentence. One year later, the ruling was overturned, but Miller never forgot about the unjust treatment he and many of his friends had suffered.
6. He Wrote an Allegorical Play About the Red Scare
The unjust persecution of various artists during the 1950s inspired Arthur Miller to write The Crucible, which ended up becoming his most-performed play. The Crucible is based on the true story of the Salem Witch Trials, during which several innocent people were wrongfully accused of practicing witchcraft. Like any piece of art, the play can be interpreted in various ways. However, it does not take a lot of imagination to figure out the parallels between the 17th-century witch trials and the mass hysteria that overtook the USA regarding communist infiltrates in the 1950s.
7. He Married Three Times
During the 89 years of his life, Arthur Miller got married three times. His first wife was Mary Grace Slattery, with whom he had two children. Shortly after their divorce, he married the movie star Marilyn Monroe. The highly publicized marriage between the Jewish intellectual and the glamorous Hollywood star may have seemed unlikely at first glance. But as Arthur Miller shared in an interview, “the very inappropriateness of us being together was to me a sign that it was appropriate.”
Although Marilyn converted to Judaism, took a break from filming, and risked her own career by accompanying him to his hearings at the House Committee on Un-American Activities, their marriage only lasted five years. They ended up getting a Mexican divorce in 1961 and Marilyn died by suicide shortly after.
His third wife was the European photographer Inge Morath, whom he married in 1962. The couple remained together until Inge’s death in 2002. She also gave birth to two children, raising the total number of Arthur Miller’s children to four. Some sources have criticized Miller for sending his son with Down-Syndrome to an institution.
8. He Wrote the Script for The Misfits
While the marriage of Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller did not result in any children, they did give birth to a joint creative project—a Hollywood film called The Misfits. The movie was written by Arthur Miller and starred Marilyn Monroe. However, the stresses of shooting The Misfits in the heat of the Nevada desert only served to accelerate the breakdown of their relationship. During the shooting of the film, Monroe’s mental health declined rapidly, causing her to turn up to the set late or not at all. At one point, things got so bad that Marilyn had to go to hospital for two weeks, which forced the film crew to take an unplanned break. According to sources, the couple barely talked to each other during the filming. They divorced shortly afterward.
9. He Did Not Attend Marilyn Monroe’s Funeral
Shortly after the filming of Misfits and the finalization of their divorce, Marilyn Monroe was found dead in her home. While some conspiracy theories suggest a murder, her death is commonly thought to have been caused by an accidental or intentional drug overdose. Arthur Miller did not attend the funeral. As he later explained in an essay, he believed that Monroe’s funeral was nothing more than a press event. He preferred to mourn her in private instead of joining the media frenzy. Given that he was already in a relationship with Inge Morath at the time, he may have also wished to protect his new partner by staying away from the funeral.
10. Arthur Miller’s Last Girlfriend Was Much Younger Than Him
Once his third wife died in 2002, Miller fell in love with the painter Agnes Barley, who was 55 years younger than him. It seems that his family was less than amused about the relationship. Only hours after Arthur Miller’s death in 2005, his daughter is said to have ordered Agnes Barley to vacate the home where they had lived together. While his relationships with women certainly got him into the news on more than one occasion, he continues to be remembered as one of America’s most influential playwrights.
