Arthur Miller Library

Arthur Miller (October 17, 1915 - February 10, 2005) was an American playwright and essayist. Born in New York City, he began writing while a student at the University of Michigan, and was established as an important writer when his play All My Sons won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award in 1947. Significant themes in Miller's work include Jewishness, suffering, and heroes staying true to their moral choices in the face of pressure from their communities. Other major works by Miller include Death of a Salesman (1949); an adaptation of Ibsen's An Enemy of the People (1950); The Crucible (1953); A View from the Bridge (1955), which won Miller his third Drama Critics Circle Award; After the Fall (1964), his first play after a nine-year hiatus; and The Price (1968). Miller also wrote the screenplay for the 1961 movie The Misfits, starring Clark Gable and Miller's then-wife Marilyn Monroe, as well as the 1980 television production of Playing for Time, Fania Fenelon's story of how she survived in Auschwitz by being part of the prison camp's female orchestra. Miller's autobiography, Timebends: A Life, was published in 1987.