Legendary Playwright Arthur Miller Dead at 89

Legendary playwright Arthur Miller, who is most famous for his play Death of a Salesman, died February 10 in Roxbury, Connecticut. The cause was congestive heart failure, according to an Associated Press report. He was 89.

Acknowledged as a leading figure in postwar American theater, Miller's work deals with ethics, morality and politics. He began his career as part of the Federal Theatre Project, for which he wrote radio scripts and plays. In 1944, his first professional play, The Man Who Had All the Luck revived by Roundabout Theatre Company in 2002 was produced and the following year, a novel, Focus, was published. Three years later, Miller gained acclaim with All My Sons, which was awarded the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play. Two years after that, what is considered his masterwork, Death of a Salesman was produced. It won a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award. The Tony-winning 1999 Broadway revival of Death of a Salesman, starring Brian Dennehy and directed by Robert Falls, was recently announced for a West End transfer. It will open at the Lyric Theatre on May 16.

In the mid-1950s, Miller took a stand against the political administration and the House Committee on Un-American Activities. His play The Crucible, which won a Tony Award in 1953, was thought of as an indictment of the committee and he refused to cooperate when called before it. His conviction for the matter was later overturned. He catapulted further into the media spotlight with a marriage to Marilyn Monroe in 1956. The pair got divorced in 1961 the same year The Misfits, which he wrote and Monroe starred in, was released.

Miller has continued to work throughout his life. His other plays produced on Broadway include A View From The Bridge, Incident at Vinchy, The Price, The American Clock, After the Fall, Broken Glass and The Ride Down Mt. Morgan. His last two produced works, Resurrection Blues and Finishing the Picture which recently premiered at the Goodman Theatre, both had regional mountings but have yet to be seen in New York. In addition to his plays, Miller penned a memoir, Timebends.

One of the most honored living playwrights, he received Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Lucille Lortel Foundation, the Drama Desk Awards and the Tony Awards. In 1999, he also became the sixth recipient of the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize, which is presented to "a man or woman who has made an outstanding contribution to the beauty of the world and to mankind's enjoyment and understanding of life."

Miller was married three times. The first two ended in divorce, and his last wife, Inge Morath, died in 2002. Heis survived by his children: Jane, Robert and Rebecca, his sister, Joan Copeland, and four grandchildren.