for just one published version of his play.
"Well, someone's got to make it," he
replied.
His plays remained popular in
England, even though he long ago
became unfashionable in America. He
put it down to the commercial inde-
pendence of nonprofit theaters in
England like the National and bitterly
regretted that there's no real equivalent
system here.
"But who gives a goddamn about
fashion?" he protested when I men-
tioned the subject. "The only test of a
play does not belong to fashion. The
only test should be, 'Do I listen to this
playwright or not? Does his play move
me?'"
But he did give a goddamn, of course.
In the punishing world of theater, great
dramatists often have a cluster of early,
successful work that isn't equaled in later
years. Yet Miller never stopped writing.
Theater was his public forum. Until
the end, until well into his 80s, he still
had things to say and would not be
silenced.
Laurence Olivier had a lot to thank
him for. It was Miller who led the
unlikely way to Olivier, the greatest clas-
sical actor of the 20th century, playing
his most memorable modern stage role,
the seedy, failed comedian Archie Rice
in John Osborne's The Entertainer.
In July 1957, Miller accompanied his
wife Marilyn Monroe to London, where
she was filming the period comedy
about a breathy innocent abroad, The
Prince and the Showgirl directed by her
co-star, Olivier. Welcoming Miller —
nicknamed "Mr. Monroe" and
"Marilyn's Boy" by the British press —
Olivier asked which plays he was inter-
ested in seeing. Miller named Osborne's
Look Back in Anger, which had just
opened at the Royal Court, because the
title intrigued him.
To his surprise, however, Olivier
advised him to pick something else —
dismissing the breakthrough social
drama he'd already seen with, "It's just a
travesty on England."
It made Miller even keener to see it.
Tickets were quickly arranged for the
following night, and Olivier turned up
unexpectedly to see the play a second
time with Miller. Olivier was stunned
when Miller found Look Back in Anger a
revelation — the first modern English
play of the period, he said subsequently,
to speak to him.
Anxious to grasp its significance,
Olivier asked him twice — during the
intermission and again at the end —
why he thought the play was so wonder-
ful. Then they went backstage to meet
the snarling 25-year-old Osborne.
"Do you suppose you could write
something for me?" a smiling Olivier
asked him cravenly. According to Miller,
Olivier was laying on the charm so
much he could have convinced anyone
to buy a car without wheels from him
for $20,000.
Osborne's next play was The
Entertainer, and the rest, thanks to
Arthur Miller's role as the go-between,
really is history.
Ten years ago, he was back at the
Royal Court to see a new play with a
friend of his, the London producer
Robert Fox. (It's best, I guess, if we don't
name the writer of the play.) Within a
few minutes, however, Fox could hear
Miller groaning to himself and shifting
restlessly in his seat.
'Are you all right, Arthur?" he asked
him as they were both taking a leak dur-
ing intermission.
"No, I'm not," Miller replied feistily.
"This is crap! Let's go."
Aware that members of the audience
had recognized him, Fox suggested that
perhaps he ought to stay for the second
act
"It's crap and we're going!" Miller
insisted, heading for the exit. "If we're
not enjoying ourselves, why stay? Life's
too short. I'm 79!"
For the disappointed theatergoer, life
is always too short.
Lastly, this story Miller told me when
I first met him that summer day in
Connecticut all those years ago. There
was a lake on his property, and as he
took a gentle swim in it, he mentioned a
TV soap opera that his sister, the actress
Joan Copeland, had once starred in.
Therein lies a tale and a Miller moral.
The character his sister played was
killed of Miller told me that his sister
played the role of Ethel, who unexpect-
edly starts to die from an incurable dis-
ease. But when it dawned on the viewers
what was happening, the TV station
received thousands of letters in protest.
Ethel must stay! But the die was cast,
and they killed off Ethel just the same.
Then they thought up a bright idea.
After a decent pause, Miller's sister
returned to the soap opera as Ethel's
long-lost twin from South Africa. But
whereas Ethel had been a lovable charac-
ter, her twin sister wasn't. So the protest
letters poured in again. Ethel would
never have a twin sister like this! The
twin must go! So they killed her off
"I hope this teaches us all a lesson,"
said Arthur Miller. "Never mess around
with a good thing."
Then he swam off in the lake, at a
determined, even pace. ❑
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