Arthur Miller  (b. 1915) Death of a Salesman LINKS The Kennedy Center Honors http://kennedy-center.org/honors/1984/ miller.htmlhttp://kennedy-center.org/honors/1984/miller.html This site offers a brief but detailed biography. Arthur Miller http://www.levity.com/corduroy/millera.htm This page at the Bohemian Ink site includes many useful links to other sources on Miller. BIOGRAPHY Arthur Miller (b. 1915) Raised in New York City, the son of a school teacher and clothing manufacturer, Arthur Miller studied playwriting at the University of Michigan. Although he wrote radio scripts and plays, during World War II he made his living as a steam fitter. His first Broadway play in 1944 was a failure, but All My Sons (1947), about a corrupt defense contractor, was named best play of the year. The 1949 production of Death of a Salesman (which won the Pulitzer Prize) was an immense success and established Miller's reputation. The infamous loyalty hearings conducted by Senator Joseph McCarthy contributed to the substance of The Crucible (1953), an investigation into the Salem witchcraft trials. He was married to Marilyn Monroe from 1956–1961. In 1956, Miller was cited for contempt by the House Un-American Activities Committee when, after testifying fully about his own political activities, he refused to name others. His plays invariably turn on moral issues and continue to illustrate the comment he made to an interviewer after the success of All My Sons: "I don't see how you can write anything decent without using as your basis the question of right or wrong." His dedication to individual conscience and suspicion of government repression led him to adapt Ibsen's An Enemy of the People for the Broadway stage in 1951. His most recent play, Broken Glass (1994), focuses on the aftermath of Kristallnacht, the night in 1938 in Nazi Germany when thousands of Jewish shops and synagogues were destroyed. Miller is also the author of an autobiography, Timebends (1987), and a collection of stories, Homely Girl, A Life: And Other Stories (1995).