Death of playwright?

Can Arthur Miller8217;s reputation survive revelations that he abandoned his son?

It had been something of an open secret for years, but most people did not learn the story of Daniel Miller until last week, when Vanity Fair published an article called 8216;Arthur Miller8217;s Missing Act8217;.

As described in Suzanna Andrews8217;s article, Arthur Miller, who died in February 2005, and his third wife, the photographer Inge Morath, had a son born with Down syndrome in 1966. Soon after, they made the painful decision to put the child, Miller8217;s youngest, in an institution for the mentally retarded.

Andrews describes how Miller rarely, if ever, accompanied his wife on visits to see Daniel, almost never mentioned him to shocked friends and didn8217;t mention him in his memoir, Timebends. The picture that emerges is of a father in denial and a son who has moved on to live a happy life without him.

Reactions to this article have raised questions about what effect, if any, this will have on this playwright8217;s legacy.

8220;Arthur Miller will be remembered for Death of a Salesman, The Crucible and All My Sons,8221; Broadway producer Emanuel Azenberg said. 8220;All the rest is talk.8221;

What makes the revelation so upsetting is how it juxtaposes Miller8217;s private decision with his public image, as one of the greatest American playwrights and the man who refused to name names before the House Committee on Un-American Activities and eloquently and loudly opposed the Vietnam War. Miller8217;s plays have often examined questions of guilt and morality through the prism of family. He was a hero of the left and a champion of the downtrodden.

8220;Miller had been built up as a moral conscience,8221; said Martin Gottfried, whose 2004 biography, Arthur Miller: His Life and Work, is the only publication to mention Daniel. 8220;But by the time of After the Fall, he was laboring under the weight of this godliness.8221;

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Writers like Miller and Gunter Grass, 8220;who set themselves up as moralists and public scolds, are more vulnerable to criticism based on their behavior,8221; wrote Morris Dickstein, who teaches English at the City University of New York Graduate Center.

One of the more controversial parts of the Vanity Fair article is its speculation on how Miller8217;s relationship with Daniel affected his writing. His most famous plays, Death of a Salesman and The Crucible, were written at the beginning of his career in the late 8216;40s and 8216;50s, but his output slowed by the end of the next decade. Andrews says Miller never wrote anything 8220;approaching greatness8221; after Daniel was born.

His public life will fade from memory, but his plays 8212; at least some of them 8212;will not.
-JASON ZINOMAN NYT