Born 1915

Arthur Miller rose to fame as author of many successful Broadway plays; he also made headlines for his short–lived marriage to Marilyn Monroe (1956–1961). He spent his childhood in Brooklyn and Harlem, and lived in the Chelsea Hotel during the 60s. His two best known plays are The Crucible, an allegory for the McCarthy era, and Death of a Salesman (winner of the 1949 Pulitzer Prize), a tragic examination of a man’s relation to the modern world. His later play A View from the Bridge (1955) examines the story of Sicilian immigrants living in Red Hook. Themes of New York life—like the gap between financial success and happiness, and the difficulties of life in an urban setting—are central to many of his plays.