Willy Loman first one he ever read and predated his interest in becoming an actor. He noted that the play resonated with him because his father was a travelling salesman and he had an older brother. Hoffman eventually played the role in a high-school production. In 1965, Hoffman served as the assistant director in an off-Broadway revival of "A View from the Bridge" at the Sheridan Square Playhouse with a cast that included Robert Duvall and Jon Voight. The show's director Ulu Grosbard suggested to Miller that Hoffman had the potential to make a great Willy Loman. Miller was unimpressed and later
Arthur Miller suicide results from the tremendous guilt and self-awareness that arises during the play. Christopher Bigsby wrote "Arthur Miller: The Definitive Biography" based on boxes of papers Miller made available to him before his death in 2005. The book was published in November 2008, and is reported to reveal unpublished works in which Miller "bitterly attack[ed] the injustices of American racism long before it was taken up by the civil rights movement". In his book "Trinity of Passion", author Alan M. Wald conjectures that Miller was "a member of a writer's unit of the Communist Party around 1946," using the pseudonym