Arthur Miller: His Life And Work - Hardcover

Gottfried, Martin

3.62

61 ratings by Goodreads

9780306812149: Arthur Miller: His Life And Work

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0306812142 ISBN 13: 9780306812149

Publisher: Da Capo Press, 2003

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Arthur Miller has been delivering powerful drama to the stage for decades with such masterpieces as Death of a Salesman . But, remarkably, no one has yet told the full story of Miller's own extraordinary life-a rich life, much of it shrouded from public view. To achieve this groundbreaking portrait of the artist and the man, the award-winning drama critic and biographer Martin Gottfried masterfully draws on his interviews with those who have known Miller throughout his personal and professional life, on Miller's voluminous lifelong correspondence, and on the annotated scripts and notebooks that reveal Miller's creative process in stunning detail. From Miller's childhood and adolescence in Depression-era New York City to his formative college years in Michigan...from the numerous early professional rejections to the 1947 play All My Sons that established him as a voice to be reckoned with...from his heroic defiance of the House Un-American Activities Committee during the McCarthy years to his most unlikely pairing with Marilyn Monroe... from political and social activism on the world stage to an extraordinary professional vitality even as he turns 88 in October 2003 (he is still writing plays, and stage revivals and film adaptations of his classics proliferate): here is a dazzling book-a literary event of the first order.

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About the Author:

Martin Gottfried, winner of the George Jean Nathan Award for dramatic criticism, is the author of Sondheim and All His Jazz , among other books. He lives in New York City, and Amagansett, NY.

From Publishers Weekly:

Former New York Post drama critic Gottfried (Sondheim) shares an illuminating and profound picture of playwright Miller. Outraged at the shameful critical disrespect heaped in recent years on the author of Death of a Salesman and All My Sons, Gottfried carefully analyzes all Miller's plays to rebut the adverse comments. An indifferent student, son of a father barely literate yet successful as a women's clothing manufacturer, Miller (b. 1915) blossomed in college and produced promising works: Final Curtain, Honors at Dawn and They Too Arise. The Jewish Miller married Catholic Mary Grace Slattery, the daughter of anti-Semitic parents, and persevered despite the failure of his first production, The Man Who Had All the Luck (1944). After this rejection, Miller consciously aimed to create a commercial hit, accomplished with All My Sons. Gottfried leads readers through the playwright's meticulous work regimen-his attention to potential titles, dialogue and scene descriptions, pointing out that it took five years, six drafts and 700 pages before Miller was satisfied with his first hit. Material about Marilyn Monroe is incorporated seamlessly throughout the text, and Gottfried refuses to unbalance his overall literary study with sensationalism. He compellingly presents the Miller/Elia Kazan artistic collaborations and doesn't avoid unflattering details (e.g., his subject's tendency toward pomposity and his tight-fisted financial attitude) but also expresses admiration for Miller's willingness to offer informer Lee J. Cobb a starring role in A View from the Bridge. (Miller discussed his plays with Gottfried, but not his life.) Only Inge Morath, Miller's third wife, remains shadowy. Fortunately, personal stories are refreshingly secondary in one of the rare books that makes the playwriting process comprehensible and consistently involving.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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