I would be remiss not to note the death Friday of the great playwright Arthur Miller, who passed away at the age of 89. Miller was certainly a pioneer, having penned such great works as The Crucible and that high school English class favourite, Death of a Salesman.
Miller was one of those celebrities who in his later life went into total seclusion. Hardly anyone saw him in public in his golden years. Miller did continue to write, and you'd see him pop up once in a while with a clever short story or an essay in The New Yorker. He also wrote some pretty vexing political stuff.
I was slightly struck by the attention paid in the many tributes to Miller's marriage to Marilyn Monroe. I was more than struck -- almost offended -- at the headline in yesterday's Globe and Mail, something like "Marilyn's husband, playwright Arthur Miller dies." Why "Marilyn's husband" first? Is it just me, or this is slightly sad? Sure, this was a big thing back in the day. But does the woman he once married really outweigh the man's literary achievements in his obit? I think not.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 12:11 PM
