Centennial of playwright and former Brooklynite Arthur Miller
An inferior and uninterested student while attending high school in Brooklyn, Arthur Miller would become one of the 20th century’s most prominent playwrights. This Oct. 17 marks the 100th anniversary of his birth.
Arthur Asher Miller was born in Harlem to parents who were of Jewish heritage. His father, Isadore, had sailed to America by himself at age six with a cardboard sign hung around his neck that said “Please put this boy on the SS Clearwater.”
From this hardscrabble predicament, Miller’s father had managed to become a successful businessman, owning the Miltex Coat and Suit Company, which had more than 800 employees, according to Martin Gottfried’s biography “Arthur Miller: His Life and Work.”