Kenneth Glad
Newly published transcripts of Arthur Miller’s recorded conversations with biographer Christopher Bigsby include a stark account of his marriage to Marilyn Monroe. The recordings also show the playwright reflecting on fame, writing and the strain celebrity placed on his work and relationships.
The conversations were recorded across nearly three decades by Bigsby, Miller’s friend and biographer, after the two met in the mid-1970s.
The material has now been transcribed for The Arthur Miller Tapes: A Life in His Own Words, published by Cambridge University Press.
Although Monroe is a central presence in the newly published material, the tapes are not only about her. According to The Guardian, they also trace Miller’s anxieties about writing, his experience of political pressure and the personal consequences of sudden success.
The recordings offer Miller’s retrospective view, not a complete account of Monroe’s inner life or their marriage. That distinction matters, because many of his comments deal with deeply private and sensitive parts of Monroe’s life.
Marriage under pressure
Miller and Monroe began an affair in 1955 and married in 1956. Their relationship brought together two different kinds of American fame: Hollywood stardom and literary prestige.
In the recordings, Miller says that Monroe wanted a husband who could be “father, lover, friend and agent.” He speaks of a relationship marked by emotional need, public attention and growing mistrust.
Miller also recalls feeling that Monroe was living under extreme pressure. He talks about her drug use, her fragile emotional state and his sense that he could not protect her from herself.
The British newspaper writes that tensions between the couple worsened while Monroe was filming The Prince and the Showgirl.
By the time she appeared in The Misfits, the 1960 film Miller wrote for her, the marriage was effectively over, he says on the tape.
Beyond Monroe
Miller also discussed Monroe’s wish to become a mother after a miscarriage and an ectopic pregnancy.
In his view, motherhood was something she imagined hopefully, but he doubts whether it would have eased the pressures surrounding her.
Reflecting on Monroe’s fatal barbiturate overdose in 1962, Miller says: “It was beyond my powers or anybody else’s to hold her back.”
The conversations extend well beyond the Monroe years. Miller speaks about the success of Death of a Salesman, the collapse of his first marriage and the self-doubt that followed him throughout his career.
He also addresses McCarthyism and his refusal in 1956 to identify communist writers before the House Un-American Activities Committee.
Miller says that climate helped lead him to The Crucible, because the politics of the time could not be confronted directly.
Sources: The Guardian, Cambridge University Press
