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 the earliest version of the play, Arthur Miller wrote that Willy Loman was insulted when he overheard someone call him a "shrimp", but changed it to "walrus" when the bulky Lee J. Cobb was cast in the role in the Broadway premiere in 1947. When Dustin Hoffman took the part in the revival, Miller changed the script to include the original line.