Playwright Arthur Miller's "missing" son

No photograph of him has ever been published, but those who know Daniel Miller say that he resembles his father. Some say it's the nose, others the mischievous glimmer in the eyes when he smiles, but the most telling feature, the one that clearly identifies him as Arthur Miller's son, is his high forehead and identically receding hairline. He is almost 41 now, but it's impossible to say whether his father's friends would notice the resemblance, because the few who have ever seen Daniel have not laid eyes on him since he was a week old.

Suzanna Andrews, writing in Vanity Fair (Sept/07) gives us a fascinating piece on playwright Arthur Miller, and his "deleted" son, Daniel.

...Only a handful of people in the theater knew that Miller had a fourth child. Those who did said nothing, out of respect for his wishes, because, for nearly four decades, Miller had never publicly acknowledged the existence of Daniel.

Daniel Miller lives with Down Syndrome.  He was placed in an institution shortly after birth.

The Denver Post called [Arthur Miller] "the moralist of the past American century," and The New York Times extolled his "fierce belief in man's responsibility to his fellow man—and [in] the self-destruction that followed on his betrayal of that responsibility."

Out of sight, out of mind.

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Comments

[anthony]

reminds me of rosemary kennedy, except that was mild retardation (i know those words arent used anymore, but i have no ideal what was actually wrong w. her) coupled with a prefrontal (the kennedy's always being trendsetters, the first).

i am not sure that this is as much a society wide problem with downs as much as it is writers being absolute pricks to people who are not convenient to them, though.

[joseph]

I think it's a very well written piece. The closing quote from MIlle is hauntingr: "A character," he wrote in Timebends, "is defined by the kinds of challenges he cannot walk away from. And by those he has walked away from that cause him remorse."

I think it also highlights the contradiction between Miller's "public" courage and morality, and this hidden side of his private life.