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See Photos From the Play that Won at the Tonys Despite a ‘Minimum of Sex’

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Tony award winning play Death of a Salesman 1949
Caption from LIFE. Losing his mind as result of worry, the salesman, Willy Loman (Lee J. Cobb), babbles at imaginary characters in a restaurant. This two sons attempt to restrain him while a couple of floozies the boys have picked up look on in cold puzzlement.W. Eugene Smith—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
By Eliza Berman

It’s no secret that sex sells—but that doesn’t mean other topics can’t be hits as well. LIFE’s theater critics were well aware of that fact when reviewing Arthur Miller’s Tony-winning play Death of a Salesman in 1949. The play about a failed salesman, Willy Loman, was met with rave reviews from the get-go, and the theater-going public flocked to see it despite, LIFE noted, its utterly non-salacious themes:

One of the finest tragedies written by an American opened on Broadway last week. For Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, critics could not find high enough praise. They cheered author, actors, director. The public, responding with surprising interest to a play which pursues its course with firm purpose and a minimum of sex, paid $250,000 for tickets in advance.

Miller’s play, to this day seen by many as a crowning achievement in theater, took home five awards at the 1949 Tonys (one for Best Play and one each for Miller, director Elia Kazan, star Arthur Kennedy and set designer Jo Mielziner). This was only the third year of the annual award show, and as was tradition until the late 1950s, Salesman won the award for Best Play without any other nominees in the running.

The decorated play was been revived four times on Broadway, with three revivals, including the most recent, in 2012, winning the Tony for Best Revival or Reproduction.

Liz Ronk, who edited this gallery, is the Photo Editor for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter @lizabethronk.

Tony award winning play Death of a Salesman 1949
Caption from LIFE. Losing his mind as result of worry, the salesman, Willy Loman (Lee J. Cobb), babbles at imaginary characters in a restaurant. This two sons attempt to restrain him while a couple of floozies the boys have picked up look on in cold puzzlement.W. Eugene Smith—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Tony award winning play Death of a Salesman 1949
Caption from LIFE. Hope of Willy's life was his two sons. Here, in a flash back, he remembers playing with Hap (Cameron Mitchell), doing leg exercises, and Biff (Arthur Kennedy), who is the big high-school football hero. W. Eugene Smith—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Tony award winning play Death of a Salesman 1949
Caption from LIFE. Willy's faithful wife explains her husband to his two neglectful sons.W. Eugene Smith—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Tony award winning play Death of a Salesman 1949
Caption from LIFE. Despair engulfs Willy as he relives the awful moment when his son Biff caught him in a Boston hotel with a woman. Willy tries to confront Biff, who feels broken and betrayed by father's dishonesty.W. Eugene Smith—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Tony award winning play Death of a Salesman 1949
Caption from LIFE. At funeral, after Willy killed himself, his loyal wife (Mildred Dunnock) kneels at his grave while the sons and two friends stand with backs turned. His friend Charles tenderly paid tribute to Willy's Profession: "A salesman don't put a bolt to a nut, he don't tell you the law or give you medicine. He's a man way out there in the blue, ridin' on a smile and a shoeshine; and when they start not smiling back— boys, that's an earthquake…A salesman has got to dream boys, it comes with the territory."W. Eugene Smith—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Tony award winning play Death of a Salesman 1949
Caption from LIFE. Director and author of Salesman are Elia Kazan and Miller, who worked together on Miller's hit, All My Sons, which won critics' prize in 1947.W. Eugene Smith—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

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Write to Eliza Berman at eliza.berman@time.com