Arthur Miller's Biography

His father owned a garment factory but was ruined financially after the Great Crash of 1929.

Arthur Miller studied at the University of Michigan.

He wrote many acclaimed plays including All my Sons (1947), Death of a Salesman (1949), which won the Pulitzer Prize, and The Crucible (1953), the theme of which, the persecution of the Salem witches was inspired by the McCarthy witch hunts and contemporary political persecution.

Arthur Miller testified before the congressional committee, The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), and refused to name friends who might have been communists. He was held in contempt of Congress.

The committee was symbolic of a paranoia of Communism. Over 300 people were blacklisted by Hollywood over their alleged membership of the Communist party.

Eventually on 7 August 1958, Washington's Court of Appeals quashed Arthur Miller's conviction for contempt.

Arthur Miller also wrote the screenplay of the film version of The Crucible, which featured his son-in-law Daniel Day-Lewis, who was married to his daughter, Rebecca Miller.

Arthur Miller married three times: In 1940 to Grace Slattery; in 1956 to Marilyn Monroe, and then to Ingeborg Morath, whom he met on the set of The Misfits, in 1962.

From 1965 to 1968 Arthur Miller was President of the writers' group, PEN, and, in 1995, he was made Cameron Mackintosh Professor Of Contemporary Theatre at Oxford University.

Arthur Miller died on 10 February 2005.