Eric Koch for Anefo · CC0

Arthur Miller wrote Death of a Salesman in 1949, still considered one of the best American plays of the century, and followed it with The Crucible, using the Salem witch trials as an allegory for the era's anti-communist hysteria. He testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee himself in the 1950s. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, married Marilyn Monroe in 1956, and later wrote the screenplay for her final completed film, The Misfits.