Arthur Miller Biography (1915 - current) |
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Arthur Miller Biography (1915 - current) |
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| 1915 -- Born in Harlem, New
York. Spent much of his youth in Brooklyn and like many
families in the neighborhood, he grew up poor and having
several jobs. This gives him the first hand understanding
of the working class and their condition 1934-8 -- Went to University of Michigan after limited income and poor grades delayed his start. Met his first wife, Mary Slattery, there. The midwest Catholic and the Eastern Jew marriage lasted for about a decade. 1939-late 40's --Variety of factory and salesmen jobs trying to break into Broadway as a writer 1945 -- Focus, a novel about anti-Semitism 1947 -- All My Sons, play is a success. Story focuses on a businessman whose actions during World Warr II bring about the disintegration of his family earned immediate critical acclaim and established Miller as on the the country's most promising playwrights. 1949 -- Death of a Salesman, play wins Pulitzer and New York's Playwrights' Circle awards. In Willy Loman, a deluded and tragic protagonist whose obsessive and futile quest for material success evoked an ambivalent reacton from the audience 1953 -- The Crucible is another success and stirs a great deal of controversy. Although set in Salem during the witch trials of the Puritan period, the play was a sharp criticism of the communist hunts of the McCarthy perod. Miller himself appeared before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee in 1956. He admitted attending Communist party meetings but steadfastly refused to implicate others who had communist sympathies. This refusal resulted in a conviction for comptempt, a conviction that was later overturned by the Supreme Court. 1955 -- A Memory of Two Mondays, play based on when Miller had to drop out of high school and work as a shipping clerk in an automobile parts warehouse. 1956 -- marries Marilyn Monroe, film star. Miller does very little writing during his five year marriage to Monroe. 1961 -- The Misfits, a screenplay about the disintegration of his marriage 1964 -- Vichy 1968 -- The Price, about the theme of guilt and responsibility using the strained relationship between two brothers 1972 -- The Creation of the World and Other Business 1977 -- The Archbishop's Ceiling, deals with the treatment of Russian dissident writers and the treatment of them. 1980 -- The American Clock 1987 -- Timebends, an autobiography 1991 -- The Ride Down Mount Morgan, a play 1997 -- film version of The Crucible is produced with Winona Ryder and Daniel Day Lewis
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