Fredric March of Our Lives". March also branched out into television, winning Emmy nominations for his third attempt at "The Royal Family" for the series "The Best of Broadway" as well as for television performances as Samuel Dodsworth and Ebenezer Scrooge. On March 25, 1954, March co-hosted the 26th Annual Academy Awards ceremony from New York City, with co-host Donald O'Connor in Los Angeles. March's neighbor in Connecticut, playwright Arthur Miller, was thought to favor March to inaugurate the part of Willy Loman in the Pulitzer Prize-winning "Death of a Salesman" (1949). However, March read the play and turned down the role,
Arthur Miller to marry. Within hours of her father's death, Rebecca Miller ordered Barley to vacate the premises, having consistently opposed the relationship. Miller's final play, "Finishing the Picture", opened at the Goodman Theatre, Chicago, in the fall of 2004, with one character said to be based on Barley. It was reported to be based on his experience during the filming "The Misfits", though Miller insisted the play is a work of fiction with independent characters that were no more than composite shadows of history. Miller died of bladder cancer and heart failure, at his home in Roxbury, Connecticut. He had been