Death of a Salesman his standards. The models of business success provided in the play all argue against Willy's "personality theory." One is Charley, Willy's neighbor and apparently only friend. Charley has no time for Willy's theories of business, but he provides for his family and is in a position to offer Willy a do-nothing job to keep him bringing home a salary. (Bloom 51) "Death of a Salesman" first opened on February 10, 1949, to great success. Drama critic John Gassner wrote that “the ecstatic reception accorded "Death of Salesman" has been reverberating for some time wherever there is an ear for theatre,
Dustin Hoffman and my brother, a high-school varsity football player, was Biff." Author Marie Brenner notes that Hoffman "has been obsessed with the play" throughout his career: "For years he has wanted to be Willy Loman; when he discovered that Arthur Miller was his neighbor in Connecticut, they began to talk about it in earnest." For Hoffman, the story also left a deep emotional impact from the time he first read it: Hoffman rehearsed for three weeks with the play's original star, Lee J. Cobb, and remembers seeing his stage performance: "I'll never forget that period in my life. It was so