Arthur Miller's "Missing Act": Son Born With Down Syndrome
"It had been something of an open secret for years, but most people did not learn the story of Daniel Miller until last week, when Vanity Fair published an article called 'Arthur Miller’s Missing Act.' As described in Suzanna Andrews’s 5,000-word article, Arthur Miller, who died in February 2005, and his third wife, the photographer Inge Morath, had a son born with Down syndrome in 1966. Soon after, they made the painful decision to put the child, Miller’s youngest, in an institution for the mentally retarded before Miller essentially cut him out of his life.
"Ms. Andrews describes in detail how Miller rarely, if ever, accompanied his wife on weekly visits to see Daniel, almost never mentioned him to shocked friends and didn’t mention him in his memoir, 'Timebends.' The picture that emerges is of a father in denial and a son who has moved on to live a happy life without him. 'Miller excised a central character who didn’t fit the plot of his life as he wanted it,' Ms. Andrews writes.
"Reactions to this article, among those working in theater and on a flood of message boards and blogs, have been emotional, and they have raised questions about what effect, if any, this will have on this playwright’s legacy."
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