A seven dollar sheet cake, getting suddenly fired,
and a savior in Dean Martin. Something had to give on the set of Marilyn Monroe's last movie.
Something's Got to Give was set to be a remake of the 1940 comedy My Favorite Wife.
The plot is about a woman stranded on a deserted island with a stranger for five years.
Her husband, played by Dean Martin, assumes she's died, so he remarries. When she's finally rescued,
the poor husband now has two wives and struggles to keep his life afloat.
Something's Got to Give was continuously delayed, with the start of production pushed
from January to March 1962 due to problems finalizing the script. Delays mounted,
and 20th Century Fox began to worry about it ever getting finished.
But director George Cukor didn't get the memo. He spent time and money having his own house
replicated as the set, and he was happy to waste more time on unimportant details
like getting a dog to bark on cue. As a result, the set was a pressure cooker,
with studio execs pushing for a fast release while the schedule slipped further and further behind.
Marilyn Monroe was a huge star, but she joined the production of Something's Got to Give under
several dark clouds. For one thing, she hadn't worked, or even been on a film
set, in a year. The previous year had been rough for her. She'd divorced Arthur Miller,
spent some time in a psychiatric hospital for depression and had her gallbladder removed,
a surgery that reportedly left a very large scar across her belly.
The result of all that stress was a diminished movie star who was thinner than she'd ever been
before. She'd also lost confidence in her judgment. In his book The Final Years of
Marilyn Monroe, author Keith Badman notes that she repeatedly rejected the script for
Something's Got to Give, because she was acutely aware that she'd made poor choices in the past
and no longer trusted her instincts. Simply put, she wasn't ready to go back to work.
After signing on to make Something's Got to Give, Monroe fell ill almost immediately, causing her to
miss multiple days of work. She provided doctor's notes that claimed she was suffering from various
ailments, including high fevers, sinusitis, and a viral infection. Worse, when she did appear on
set, she often locked herself in her trailer and had to be coaxed out. Her stress was reportedly so
bad that a childhood stutter returned, making it difficult for her to recite her lines.
George Cukor initially tried to accommodate Monroe's health issues by filming around her.
But this could only work to a certain extent. In the first 30 days of filming, she missed 17 days.
Producer Henry Weinstein frequently found her throwing up before having to perform her scenes
and once even found her unconscious from a barbiturate overdose. He wanted to stop filming
in light of her fragile health, but the studio, facing increasing financial stress, refused.
"I tell you the girl, is not able to do this yet."
When Something's Got to Give went into production in 1962, 20th Century Fox was also
making Cleopatra. The latter film eventually had a reported budget of about $44 million, a staggering
sum in 1962 and equivalent to about $415 million in today's dollars. Another project, The Longest
Day, was also costing a lot more than the studio had planned, in the form of about $10 million.
These overruns had executives in a panic, and Something's Got to Give was seen as a quick way to
make some fast money to avoid bankruptcy. But as the shooting schedule fell behind due to Monroe's
absences and illnesses, tensions on the set began to rise. Studio executives couldn't go after
Cleopatra star Elizabeth Taylor, who was paid a record $1 million to appear in the film. But they
could, and did, view Monroe and her $100,000 paycheck as a scapegoat for their problems.
According to The Final Years of Marilyn Monroe, Monroe was initially reluctant to sign on to
Something's Got to Give because she didn't like the script. She didn't have contractual script
approval, so the studio didn't have to take any of her suggestions, but that didn't matter. If
she didn't approve of something, she was legendary for simply not showing up until it was changed.
So the studio worked with her to revise the script over and over again until she was satisfied.
But even after production began, the script continued to change on an almost daily basis.
As recounted in the book Marilyn Monroe: Her Films, Her Life,
the producers began distributing new script pages on colored paper so the cast and crew
would know what had changed. But then they switched to sending Monroe standard white pages
because the color system confused her. As a result, she would often discover that
after working hard to learn her new lines, those lines had changed again when she arrived on set.
By the time Marilyn Monroe began filming Something's Got to Give at the age of 35, she was
already considered old for her sex symbol persona. She was well aware that this reputation mattered
and that it depended entirely on her physical appearance. This is why Something's Got to Give's
swimming pool scene has become iconic despite the film never getting a proper release. Monroe's
character, Ellen, goes skinny dipping in her husband's house to entice him to come down to her.
The actress was given a flesh-colored swimsuit, but she decided impulsively to remove it,
as she instead actually swam naked and invited photographers to document the moment.
This wasn't erratic behavior; rather, it was a calculated gambit.
Monroe knew that she had competition, most notably Elizabeth Taylor. When she
invited photographers to capture the moment, she stipulated that when they published the photos,
Taylor couldn't be mentioned in the same issue.
"You always take a moonlight swim on the island with Adam…Eve?"
You might think that if you're a big star and your birthday rolls around while you're
filming a movie, everyone would throw you a big party. But when Marilyn Monroe turned another
year older during Something's Got to Give, it was a little underwhelming. Her stand-in
Evelyn Moriarty started to plan a surprise party for the actress. As reported in the book Icon:
The Life, Times and Films of Marilyn Monroe, she collected seven dollars from the cast and
crew and purchased a sheet cake, decorated in honor of the famous swimming pool scene.
Alas, George Cukor reportedly ordered that the cake be hidden away and the
party held off until after production had wrapped
so that he could get a full day's work from Monroe. And as a final insult to their star,
Cukor and the studio executives didn't even attend the party when it was finally allowed to happen.
One of the most iconic moments in Marilyn Monroe's life is her performance of "Happy
Birthday" at Madison Square Garden in honor of President John F. Kennedy.
But this famous moment made the already chaotic set of Something's Got to Give even worse.
According to the book Marilyn Monroe: Her Films, Her Life, 20th Century Fox had given
Monroe permission to attend the event back at the beginning of the year when she signed on to
the film. But she then missed so much work due to frequent illnesses that studio execs were
outraged that she was apparently healthy enough to attend a party on the other side of the country.
George Cukor was also reportedly particularly upset about the appearance. When Monroe
arrived in New York, she was informed that the studio had issued a breach of contract notice.
"Everybody! Happy Birthday!"
After the "Happy Birthday" incident, tensions on the set were running high. According to the
book Marilyn Monroe: Private and Confidential, the actress continued to call in sick despite
the rising tensions, and she also refused to work when Dean Martin had a cold. On June 2,
just a day after turning 36, she once again refused to show up to work and then called
in sick again two days later, prompting Martin to storm off the set in frustration.
This was reportedly the last straw. After threatening Monroe with a lawsuit, on June 7,
1962, the studio announced that she'd been fired due to what it described as "spectacular
absenteeism." Producer Henry Weinstein calculated that over the course of 32 days of production,
she'd only shown up for work 12 days. Worse, when she did show up,
she wasn't exactly efficient, only getting the equivalent of four days' work done in that time.
As reported by the book Marilyn Monroe: Private and Confidential, 20th Century Fox eventually
sued their star for breach of contract, asking for $500,000 in damages. But that was just the
tip of the iceberg. Her co-star Dean Martin refused to work with a different actress,
as he stated that part of the reason he'd agreed to be in the film was because of Monroe.
His refusal to get back to work prompted his other co-star Cyd Charise to sue him in turn
for $14,000 in damages, and the studio also sued him for $500,000.
As time went on, Fox came to view Martin as the real problem,
claiming he'd verbally agreed to consider replacement actresses and then didn't follow
through with that agreement. Ultimately the studio sued Martin for an astounding $3,339,000,
more than $30 million in today's money. He casually countersued, demanding $6,885,000.
At the same time, the studio increased the damages they were seeking from Monroe to $750,000.
In the end, none of these suits went anywhere, and no one won any damages from anyone.
"I know how upset you get about little things."
"Little things?!"
On June 7, 1962, Monroe was fired from Something's Got to Give for her chronic absenteeism. But then,
as reported in Marilyn Monroe: Her Films, Her Life, she was re-hired a month and a half later
on August 1. And she wasn't just re-hired, she was also granted a long list of bonuses.
First and foremost, she got an immediate raise from $100,000 to $250,000. Second, she was
also given a $1 million contract for two more films, raising her salary to $500,000 per film.
And possibly most important for Monroe, George Cukor was replaced as director by Jean Negulesco.
After being sent away, she was back and now triumphant.
Just exactly why the studio made such an abrupt about-face remains the topic
of furious speculation. Many believe that Dean Martin's refusal to consider working with any
other actress had a lot to do with it. It's also been speculated that she was simply a unique box
office attraction who was irreplaceable. Whatever the reasons, on August 1, 1962, Monroe was at a
professional high point. She never got to enjoy it, though. Just three days later, she was dead.
After Marilyn Monroe's death, 20th Century Fox shut down production on Something's Got to Give
and took a reported loss of about $2 million. As reported in the book The Immortal Marilyn,
the studio locked away all of the footage from the production and
claimed for years that Monroe's appearance and performance were too bad to be seen.
For decades this was the accepted story: a troubled production ruined by a star
whose mental and physical state prevented her from delivering a decent performance.
But then in 2001, the studio finally released an edited
version of the usable footage from the shoot,
and the results were eye-opening. Monroe fit the part of a classic Hollywood beauty in her scenes,
and a review of the nine hours or so of raw footage shows her to be professional and patient.
And her performance doesn't betray any signs of the on-set turmoil or her physical ailments.
As recounted in Marilyn Monroe: Her Films, Her Life 20th Century Fox salvaged what it
could from the debacle by recasting the film with James Garner and Doris Day and changing
the title to Move Over, Darling. That film was a decent hit for the studio in 1963,
but it's largely forgotten today, unlike the completely unforgettable Marilyn Monroe.
"Anything else you want to ask?"