Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, Thelma Ritter in The Misfits
On February 10, Pulitzer-prize winning playwright Arthur Miller died of congestive heart failure at his Roxbury home. He was 89
Miller was best known for his play about the unachievable "American Dream," Death of a Salesman, which, under the direction of Elia Kazan, opened on Broadway to rave reviews in 1949.
Two years later, Death of a Salesman was filmed by László Benedek with Fredric March as the All-American loser Willy Loman and Kevin McCarthy as his defiant son. Both March and McCarthy were nominated for Academy Awards, and so was Mildred Dunnock as Loman’s wife.
Miller also made headlines the world over when he married Marilyn Monroe in 1956. They were divorced five years later.
Among other film productions based on Miller’s plays are All My Sons (1948), directed by Irving Reis, and starring Edward G. Robinson and Burt Lancaster; the French-made The Witches of Salem (1957), based on The Crucible, directed by Raymond Rouleau, and starring Simone Signoret and Yves Montand; and The Crucible (1996), directed by Nicholas Hytner, and starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Winona Ryder.
Additionally, Miller wrote the screenplay for John Huston’s ill-fated The Misfits (1961), starring Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable, and Montgomery Clift.