George Cukor set about shooting Something's Got to Give in 1962 but it would never be finished. Marilyn Monroe would die before filming all her scenes. The production was abandoned and what footage was shot remained locked away in an archive until 1989.
Something's Got to Give is an unfinished American feature film shot in 1962, directed by George Cukor for 20th Century Fox and starring Marilyn Monroe, Dean Martin and Cyd Charisse. A remake of My Favorite Wife (1940), a screwball comedy starring Irene Dunne and Cary Grant, it was Monroe's last work, but from the beginning its production was disrupted by her personal troubles, and after her death on August 4, 1962, the film was abandoned. Most of its completed footage remained unseen for many years.
20th Century Fox overhauled the entire production idea the following year with mostly new cast and crew and produced their My Favorite Wife remake, now titled Move Over, Darling (1963) and starring Doris Day, James Garner, and Polly Bergen.
On the first day of production, April 23, 1962, Monroe telephoned Weinstein to tell him that she had a severe sinus infection and would not be on the set that morning. Apparently she had caught the infection after a trip to New York City during which she had visited her acting coach, Lee Strasberg of The Actors Studio, to go over her role. The studio sent staff physician Dr. Lee Siegel to examine the star at her home. His diagnosis would have postponed the movie for a month, but George Cukor refused to wait. Instead he reorganized the shooting schedule to film scenes around his leading lady. At 7:30 am, Cyd Charisse was telephoned and summoned to the Fox lot. Later that morning the first scene filmed involved Martin's character and Charisse, in an encounter with children building a tree house.
Over the next month filming continued mostly without Monroe, who showed up only occasionally due to fever, headaches, chronic sinusitis and bronchitis. The production fell 10 days behind schedule. As Kennedy's birthday approached, no one on the production thought Monroe would keep her commitment to the White House although she had gotten clearance on April 9 to appear at the event (see article "Happy Birthday, Mr. President"). Studio documents released after Monroe's death confirm her appearance at the political fundraising event that had been approved by Fox executives.
By this time, the production was over budget, and the script was still not completely finalized, despite writer Walter Bernstein's efforts. The script was rewritten nightly, with Monroe growing increasingly frustrated at having to memorize new scenes every day. When not before the camera, she spent much of her time on the set in her dressing room with Paula Strasberg, Lee's wife.
Pool scene
Upon her return from New York, Monroe decided to give the film a publicity boost by doing something no major Hollywood actress had done before; in the scene in which Ellen is swimming in the pool at night, she calls playfully up to Nick's bedroom window and invites him to join her. Nick tells her to get out of the pool, then realizes she is nude. A body stocking was made for her, but Monroe took it off and swam around in only a flesh-colored bikini bottom. The set was closed to all but necessary crew, but Monroe had asked photographers, including William Woodfield, to come in. After filming was completed, Monroe was photographed in the bikini bottom, and without it.
Had Something's Got to Give been completed and released as planned, Monroe would have been the first mainstream star shown topless in a Hollywood motion picture release of the sound era.[citation needed] Instead, that distinction goes to actress Jayne Mansfield in Promises! Promises! (1963).
Monroe's last day on the set
On Friday, June 1, 1962, Monroe's 36th birthday, she, Martin and Wally Cox shot a scene in the courtyard set. Monroe's stand-in, Evelyn Moriarty, bought a seven-dollar sheet cake at the Los Angeles Farmers Market. A studio illustrator drew a cartoon of a nude Monroe holding a towel, which read "Happy Birthday (Suit)". It was to be used as a birthday card, and signed by the cast and crew. The cast attempted to celebrate when Monroe arrived, but Cukor insisted that they wait until 6:00 pm (the end of the working day) because he wanted to get a "full day's work out of her."
It would be Monroe's last day on the set. She left the party with Cox, and had borrowed the fur-trimmed grey suit she had worn while filming that day because she was to attend a muscular dystrophy fundraiser at Dodger Stadium that evening with her former husband Joe DiMaggio and co-star Dean Martin's young son, Dean Paul Martin.
Monroe is fired
On Monday, June 4, 1962, Monroe phoned Henry Weinstein to inform him that she would not be on set that day once again. She had a flare-up of the sinusitis, and her temperature had reached 100 °F (37.8 °C). At a studio meeting, Cukor strongly endorsed her dismissal, and she was fired from the project on June 8, 1962. Life featured Marilyn, wrapped in a blue terrycloth robe, on its June 22, 1962 cover with the headline, "The skinny dip you'll never see."
The decision to fire Monroe was influenced by the progress of Fox's epic film Cleopatra, also in production that summer and far over its budget. Executives had planned a Christmas holiday release for Something's Got to Give, as a source of revenue to offset Cleopatra's increasing cost.
Monroe quickly gave interviews and photo essays for Life, Cosmopolitan, and Vogue magazines. The Life interview with Richard Meryman, published on August 3, 1962–just two days before her death—included her reflections on the positive and negative aspects of fame. "Fame is fickle," she said. "I now live in my work and in a few relationships with the few people I can really count on. Fame will go by, and so long, I've had you, fame. If it goes by, I've always known it was fickle. So, at least it's something I experienced, but that's not where I live."
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