Arthur Miller, one of the University’s most distinguished alumni and a leading force in American theater, died in his Roxbury, Conn., home Thursday night at age 89. The Associated Press reported heart failure as the cause of his death.

The prolific playwright was born Oct. 17, 1915 to a prominent Polish-Jewish family in Harlem. He is best known for writing “All My Sons,” “Death of a Salesman” — which earned him a Pulitzer Prize— and “The Crucible.”

Before he made his Broadway premiere in 1944, he developed his writing skills as a University student from 1934 to 1938.

He found the University alluring because of its Hopwood Awards, creative-writing prizes given to students with a cash reward. The awards were established in 1931 in memory of dramatist Avery Hopwood.

“This place seemed, because of the Hopwood Award, to be taking writing seriously,” Miller said during a visit to Ann Arbor last April.

When financial constraints kept him in Ann Arbor one spring break, Miller found himself with enough free time to write a play, he recalled in his 1987 autobiography, “Timebends.”

He submitted the highly autobiographical play, “No Villain,” about a coat manufacturer and shipping clerks’ strike, to the Hopwood Awards Committee in 1936 under the pseudonym Beymom. The play won him $250 and the Minor Award for Drama.

In his book “Arthur Miller’s America: Theater and Culture in a Time of Change,” English Prof. Enoch Brater writes that a judge said the play possessed “an excellent modern theme, handled with a tender insight into character.”

His subsequent Hopwood Award came a year later for

“Honors at Dawn,” submitted under the pseudonym Corona. The play focuses on working-class issues, a theme Miller returned to in many of his other works. It draws on both his experiences working in an automobile parts warehouse and his time at the University

He made a third and final attempt to secure a Hopwood in 1938 for a prison play titled “The Great Disobedience” but did not win.

Miller had arrived at the University two years after his high school graduation, where he was a sub-par student. Miller briefly attended the City College of New York but dropped out, unable to stay awake during his night classes after a day of work.

Rejected from the University twice, Miller appealed to the dean, who finally agreed to accept him. Miller never forgot the second chance he received, Brater said. Brater teaches a class devoted to Miller’s literary canon.

Though he had an interest in writing when he first arrived here, Miller said that he had not yet committed himself to theater.

“I was trying to write stories unsuccessfully,” he said last spring. “When I got here, I hadn’t seen any plays to speak of, maybe two or three plays in my life.”

Hoping to further his development as a writer, Miller joined The Michigan Daily’s news staff. The byline “Arthur A. Miller” first appeared May 21, 1935, in an article titled “Anti-Red Bill Sent to Senate.”

“When I worked for the Daily I did just general reporting, and I was the night editor for awhile. And I got to write some good stories about all sorts of stuff,” Miller told the Daily in 2000.

In his book, Brater writes, “Miller’s reporting for the Michigan Daily falls rather neatly into two separate categories: one dealing with campus events and information of a nonpolitical nature, the other reflecting his growing commitment and attraction to progressive causes.”

Miller eventually lost interest in journalism — which was his major until switching to English in 1936 — and his last piece to appear in the Daily ran on May 31, 1937, as a letter to the editor supporting a labor sit-down strike in Washtenaw County.

“He said he stopped writing for the Daily because he didn’t like sticking to the facts. He much preferred making things up. The rest, you know, is history,” Brater said.

Miller’s reputation as a playwright began to take shape in Prof. Kenneth Rowe’s drama class. There he learned the fundamentals of playwriting, English Prof. Laurence Goldstein said.

The lasting relationship Miller forged with Rowe continued after his graduation. The two corresponded between Ann Arbor and New York, where Miller was struggling to make a name for himself in theater circles. These letters are now housed at the University’s Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library.