Arthur Miller's Real Name: Arthur Asher Miller

Quick answer: The playwright was known professionally as Arthur Miller. Encyclopaedia Britannica lists him as also known as Arthur Asher Miller, and the Internet Broadway Database independently uses that full name in its biography note. Both record the birth date October 17, 1915, in New York, and his death on February 10, 2005, in Roxbury, Connecticut. The Kennedy Center gives the same dates and places.

Real name and early life

Britannica lists him as also known as Arthur Asher Miller, born October 17, 1915, in New York, New York. IBDB's biography note independently says Arthur Asher Miller was born on October 17, 1915, in Harlem, New York City, a more specific neighborhood wording than Britannica uses. The Kennedy Center also records October 17, 1915, in New York, New York, without the middle name Asher. Britannica says that after high school he worked in a warehouse and used the money to attend the University of Michigan, earning a B.A. in 1938. The Kennedy Center independently says that after Abraham Lincoln High School in Brooklyn, he worked as a stock clerk in an automobile parts warehouse before Michigan.

Career highlights

Britannica says the novel Focus appeared in 1945, and that All My Sons (1947) was his first important play. The Kennedy Center independently says All My Sons established him as a significant American playwright and won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. Britannica records that Death of a Salesman opened in February 1949 and won a Tony for best play and a Pulitzer Prize; the Kennedy Center also records that Pulitzer Prize. Both discuss The Crucible (1953), which Britannica says won a Tony for best play. Britannica also names the 1961 screenplay The Misfits, written for his second wife, Marilyn Monroe, whom it says he married from 1956 to 1961, and the 1987 autobiography Timebends. The Kennedy Center also names The Misfits and Timebends: A Life (1987). IBDB lists the Monroe marriage as 1956 to 1960, differing from Britannica.

Legal matters and death

Britannica says that in 1956, when Miller was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee, he refused to name people he had seen years earlier at an alleged communist writers' meeting. It records that he was convicted of contempt but appealed and won. Britannica, IBDB, and the Kennedy Center all record his death on February 10, 2005, in Roxbury, Connecticut. The Kennedy Center says he died of heart failure there; Britannica's biographical opening does not state a cause.

Name notes for searchers

People looking up Arthur Miller or Arthur Asher Miller are looking for the same playwright.