The Day Marilyn Monroe Was Ready — and the Dog Wasn’t
Today’s Flashback Friday stars thee incomparable, pioneering Marilyn Monroe — but for once, the Hollywood legend was not the one holding up the take.
We’re going back to May 14, 1962, during production of Marilyn’s unfinished final film, Something’s Got to Give. The scene was supposed to be simple enough: Monroe’s character, Ellen Arden, returns home after years away and is recognized by the family dog.
Only the dog, named Jeb, apparently had his own interpretation of the script.
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The Marilyn Monroe Movie-Night Edit
A little Golden Age Hollywood, a little behind-the-scenes chaos and one very opinionated canine co-star.
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In the 2001 documentary Marilyn Monroe: The Final Days, the surviving production footage tells a much funnier story than the tired old mythology about Marilyn being impossible on set. The documentary notes that it was Jeb who repeatedly missed his cues, forcing take after take while his trainer tried to convince him to speak on command.
Marilyn, meanwhile, keeps resetting and waiting for her furry scene partner to get with the program. At one point, after yet another non-response from Jeb, she can barely keep the amusement off her face. And honestly? Same.
The blooper is especially delicious because the dog actually mattered to the story. Something’s Got to Give was a remake of the 1940 screwball comedy My Favorite Wife, with Marilyn playing a woman who returns after being presumed dead for years. Her children no longer recognize her — but the family dog does.
So Jeb had one job. One emotionally important, movie-establishing job.
And Jeb said: not today.
The scene was filmed during what the documentary identifies as Marilyn’s third appearance on set. Crew members can be heard repeatedly trying to get Jeb to bark and hit his mark, while the entire setup slowly becomes less “Hollywood production” and more “everyone has now organized their workday around whether this dog feels like participating.”
It also leaves behind a tiny corrective to one of the most overworked narratives surrounding Monroe’s final film. The troubled production would eventually collapse, and Marilyn’s struggles with Fox have been dissected for decades. But on this particular day, in this particular scene, Marilyn showed up. The dog was the diva.
Something’s Got to Give, directed by George Cukor and co-starring Dean Martin and Cyd Charisse, was never completed. Much of the surviving footage stayed out of public view for years before material from the production was restored and incorporated into documentaries, including Marilyn Monroe: The Final Days.
Which is why moments like this are such a treat. Strip away the legend, the studio battles and the tragedy that would follow, and for a minute you simply get Marilyn Monroe trying to finish a scene while a dog named Jeb absolutely refuses to cooperate.
Watch INYIM’s Marilyn Monroe and Jeb Dog-Blooper Flashback
Our Flashback Friday cut revisits the wonderfully uncooperative dog scene from Marilyn Monroe’s unfinished 1962 film Something’s Got to Give.
For a longer look at the surviving footage, the remastered upload below returns to Marilyn’s final unfinished film without the Flashback Friday edit.
Watch Marilyn Monroe in a Remastered Something’s Got to Give Scene From 1962
The third-party remastered upload from Jorge Peña Audrey Hepburn preserves surviving footage from Marilyn Monroe’s unfinished 1962 production.
Sources: 20th Century Fox archival footage; Marilyn Monroe: The Final Days (2001); Jorge Peña Audrey Hepburn / YouTube.
