Monroe had suffered from mental illness and substance abuse for several years prior to her death, and she had not completed a film since The Misfits, which was released in 1961. She had spent 1961 preoccupied with her various health problems, and in April 1962 had begun filming Something's Got to Give for 20th Century Fox, but the studio fired her in early June. The studio publicly blamed her for the production's problems, and in the weeks preceding her death, Monroe attempted to repair her public image by giving several interviews to high-profile publications.