Marilyn Monroe’s Something’s Got To Give(Photo Credit –Wikimedia)
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Hollywood, always shimmering with glamour and ghosts, has its fair share of legends half-told, and Marilyn Monroe’s swan song, Something’s Got to Give, is one of those glimmering phantoms. Official records may close the curtain on her career with The Misfits in 1960, but behind the scenes, she was knee-deep in what was supposed to be her grand return to the screen two years later. It was never meant to be a final chapter, but fate has a cruel way of writing scripts no one asked for.
Health Struggles and On-Set Drama
The new version, a remake of the 1940 screwball romp My Favorite Wife, had Monroe step into the shoes of a long-lost wife returning from the dead to find her husband, played by Dean Martin, tangled up in a new marriage. It was a comedy gold on paper, but what unfolded was less a revival and more a slow unraveling. From the very beginning, the production felt cursed. Monroe, battling through illnesses, surgeries, and the crushing weight of depression, struggled even to show up, let alone perform with the sparkle the studios demanded. Studio executives at 20th Century Fox, watching deadlines burn, weren’t particularly amused either.
Then came the infamous birthday gala for President Kennedy. Monroe, dazzling in a glittering dress, skipped another day on set to sing for the president, and it proved to be the last straw, as she was immediately fired. (via Screenrant)
The studio scrambled as they looked for Monroe’s replacements in Kim Novak and Shirley MacLaine, but Dean Martin wasn’t having it. He stood firm that he wouldn’t shoot without Monroe’s presence, and subsequently, the studio unwillingly had to bring her back. The plan was to restart filming in October, but Monroe wouldn’t make it that far. Her death on August 4, 1962, turned the pause into a full stop. The movie and dreams of a comeback were left to gather dust in the studio’s vault.
However, not everything vanished into the shadows as a handful of scenes survived, which were enough to stitch together to provide a glimpse of what might’ve been. It was rediscovered in 1989, and about 30 minutes of footage were salvaged and shared in documentaries, including that iconic scene by the pool that fans still swoon over. But whispers of nine hours of raw footage suggest far more remains buried, likely never to surface again.
Marilyn Monroe’s last film didn’t get a premiere. There was no red carpet, no applause, but what lingers from Something’s Got to Give captures the raw, vulnerable edge of a woman trying to reclaim her stardom, fighting against her own unraveling world.
