[aculeus]

The playwright’s most lucrative year was 1984, when Dustin Hoffman starred in Salesman on Broadway. Miller may have disliked shows, but he understood show business. He and Hoffman cut themselves in as co-producers with Robert Whitehead, who did most of the actual producing. After the opening, the other two strong-armed Whitehead into agreeing to a dramatic reduction of his share of the take — Hoffman and Miller would each get 45 per cent of the production’s profits, leaving 10 per cent for Whitehead. ‘Arthur likes money,’ said Whitehead.

[Logophile]

It requires some perverse skill to be able to demolish even Marilyn Monroe as a stage presence, but in his multiple attempts Miller never failed to snuff her candle in his windiness.

Good line.

[expatpat]

I love Steyn and believe Miller to be over-rated (Williams and O'Neil are way better), but this is cruel!

[q_an_a]

great artilce thansk for posting it.

[lawgirl]

love steyn BUMP. DOAS is so sanctimonious and preachy I can hardly stand it.

Capitalism rocks.

[hinckley buzzard]

"In the dictatorships he admired, from the USSR to Cuba,... every checkout line in the supermarket is perforce for five items or less."

A small but shining jewel.

[veronica]

As I posted here when Miller died, I think he was overrated. We've produced better playwrights, Eugene O'Neill and Tennessee Williams among them. And both were more prolific than Miller, in terms of number of great works of art (as opposed to writing lots of bad plays.)

As for plays about broken dreams or pipe dreams, I far prefer The Glass Menagerie or The Iceman Cometh to Death of a Salesman.