Miller, Arthur (1915–2005)

US dramatist. His plays deal with family relationships and contemporary American values, and include Death of a Salesman (1949; Pulitzer Prize), and The Crucible (1953), based on the Salem witch trials and reflecting the communist witch-hunts of Senator Joe McCarthy. He was married from 1956 to 1961 to US film star Marilyn Monroe, for whom he wrote the film The Misfits (1960).

Miller was born in New York City and educated at the University of Michigan. His first Broadway play The Man Who Had All the Luck (1944) was a failure, but his second All My Sons (1947), won the Drama Critics' Award. Among his other plays are A View from the Bridge (1955), and After the Fall (1964), based on his relationship with Monroe. He also wrote a novel Focus (1945), and Situation Normal, an account of army life. Later work includes The American Clock (1979), on the 1930s depression, The Ride Down Mount Morgan (1991), and Broken Glass (1994), on anti-semitism in the 1930s. In 1999 Miller received a Special Tony Award, honouring his achievement in Broadway theatre. He published a collection of his essays The Crucible in History in 2000, and received the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters in November 2001. His play Resurrection Blues was first performed in 2002.