Arthur Miller, the celebrated author and playwright, was born on October 17, 1915 in the Big Apple.  New York City is where Miller’s father owned a women's clothing company that suffered tremendously during The Great Depression.   A lack of money and exemption from the military due to a knee injury are both reasons why Miller worked a number of odd jobs.  He worked several jobs after graduating from Abraham Lincoln High School so that he would have tuition to attend University of Michigan.

At the University of Michigan, Miller majored in journalism as well as worked on the school’s paper.  He penned his first material, No Villain, and won the Avery Hopwood Award for it.  This is when Miller switched his major to English and earned the mentorship of one of his professors, a professor who would help Miller to get his start in writing theater plays.

Miller went on to earn his B.A. in English and afterward participated in the Federal Theater Project only to then go on to writing radio plays.  The radio plays was a refuge for Miller away from other venues that were being accused of communism.  Ultimately, Miller became a victim of the Red Scare, but a conviction he garnered that was related to this dark period in history was overturned in 1958. 

During this time, Miller had married and divorced his college sweetheart Mary Slattery.  They had two children together.  Then, Miller became famously involved with Marilyn Monroe.  He even directed the actress in the The Misfits only to lose Monroe to a sudden suicide in 1962.  Miller went on to marry a photographer named Inge Morath and had two children together.   But he rehashed his life with Monroe in the next play he directed in the controversial 1964’s After the Fall.

Miller’s work had global ramifications as his work was banned in the Soviet Union while Death of a Salesman was a gigantic success in China. His most lauded works include and Death of a Salesman, The Crucible, and All My Sons.  His own son paid him homage when, in 1996, he produced a movie based on the The Crucible. 

Awards and rewards galore were poured onto Miller for is genius material.  One of those was the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and another was when his alma mater named a writing award after him as well as a theater.    Earlier on in his career in 1937 he had been awarded the Avery Hopwood Award for a piece entitled Honors at Dawn. Because of his innovative writing, Arthur Miller was also the first American president of the International Pen.

Fatefully, Miller died on February 10, 2005, the 56th anniversary of the Broadway debut of one of his most celebrated works, Death of a Salesman.