She’d made it perfectly clear to him that she would rather die than do a sitcom, and at this point, she was probably starting to feel less bad about him suddenly dying, and more so about how he’d completely betrayed her before he did.
But in 1968, fate would take a turn for the worse, when Melcher passed away. Doctors later told Day it was due to an enlarged heart.
Not only did they spend loads of her money, they spent so much of it that she was now over $500,000 in debt.
Fortunately, she took her power back when she and her own lawyer made changes to the contract that ensured her ultimate success. They also tried to make it as painless as possible on the actress.
In fact, she was free to do basically anything she wanted when it came to how a majority of things went, such as the script and actors.