Author Arthur Miller always pictured Willy Loman as a short, weak man with a booming voice. After nearly forty years, Miller finally got his wish after casting Dustin Hoffman.
It took three and a half hours for make-up artists to transform Dustin Hoffman, then in his forties, into Willy, who is described in the stage directions as "over sixty".
The original Broadway production of "Death of a Salesman" by Arthur Miller opened at the Morosco Theater on February 10, 1949, ran for 742 performances and won the 1949 Tony Award (New York City) for the Best Play. "Death of a Salesman" won the Pulitzer Prize in Drama in 1949.
In his autobiography "Timebends", Arthur Miller speculates that his unconscious mind picked the name "Loman" for Willy Loman, the protagonist of "Death of a Salesman", based on his conscious experience of being thrilled by The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933), which featured a character named "Commisioner Lohmann".
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