The actress, who won an Academy Award for On the Waterfront and starred opposite Cary Grant in North by Northwest, enjoyed a career spanning nearly eight decades and played close to 100 roles.
Eva Marie Saint, one of the last surviving stars of Hollywood’s golden age and a defining presence in Alfred Hitchcock’s cinematic universe, has died at the age of 102. She passed away at her home in Los Angeles on Tuesday, 6 October, according to family representatives.
Saint won the Academy Award for best supporting actress in 1955 for her performance in Elia Kazan’s On the Waterfront (1954). However, it was her role opposite Cary Grant in Hitchcock’s North by Northwest (1959) that cemented her international fame. As Eve Kendall, she embodied the director’s signature cool, enigmatic blonde, bringing sophistication and ambiguity to one of his most celebrated thrillers.
Over a life spanning more than a century, Saint played nearly 100 characters and maintained a career that lasted almost eight decades. Her final professional work came around five years ago, when she took on voice-acting roles.
At the 2018 Academy Awards, when she was 93, Saint joked that she was “older than the Academy” — a claim that was entirely accurate. Born in July 1924, she predated the institution, founded in 1927, and the first Oscar ceremony, held in 1929. Her place in Hollywood history was also marked by a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6730 Hollywood Boulevard, where she was photographed placing flowers on the tribute bearing her name.
From television beginnings to Oscar glory
Born in New Jersey, Saint discovered her interest in acting while taking part in college productions in Ohio. She began her professional career in the mid-1940s, initially appearing in advertisements before moving into short films, television series and made-for-TV movies.
After studying at New York’s prestigious Actors Studio, she gained early recognition through the radio and television series One Man’s Family, appearing in a dozen episodes between 1950 and 1952. Although the work provided a steady income, she was not particularly fond of the role. Her profile grew further with her appearance as Sheila Dixon in the television series Martin Kane, Private Eye.
Her breakthrough came with On the Waterfront, in which she played Edie, the woman who becomes involved with Marlon Brando’s troubled dockworker. The film won eight Academy Awards, including best picture, best director for Kazan and best actor for Brando. Saint received the only Oscar nomination of her career — and won.
When she accepted the award, she was nine months pregnant and joked that the excitement might send her into labour. Two days later, she gave birth.
The Hitchcock role that made her a star
Five years later, Saint reached an international audience with North by Northwest. Her portrayal of Eve Kendall, a poised and mysterious woman caught up in a dangerous case of mistaken identity, became one of her most enduring performances.
Speaking at the San Sebastián Film Festival in 2000, Saint recalled Hitchcock’s advice for preparing for the role. He gave her three instructions: lower her voice, avoid using her hands and, most importantly, always look deeply into Cary Grant’s eyes. The last requirement, she observed, was the easiest.
Although the role remained closely associated with her name, Saint resisted being defined by a single performance. Her career was marked by a preference for dramatic roles and collaborations with some of Hollywood’s most prominent actors.
She appeared alongside Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift in Raintree County (1957), starred with Paul Newman in Otto Preminger’s Exodus (1960), reunited with Taylor and worked with Richard Burton in Vincente Minnelli’s The Sandpiper (1965), and appeared opposite Gregory Peck in The Stalking Moon (1968).
Saint also demonstrated her comic talents in the 1966 Cold War comedy The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming, alongside Carl Reiner and Alan Arkin.
A career shaped by family and selective roles
Saint never aspired to become a superstar. She preferred smaller roles that allowed her to devote more time to raising her children, a choice that helped shape the course of her later career.
In a 1990 interview with the Los Angeles Times, she acknowledged that opportunities for older actresses on the big screen had diminished. She consequently turned increasingly to television, saying she was “perfectly happy” with the change.
During the 1980s, she appeared in several television productions, including the series Moonlighting, in which she played the mother of Cybill Shepherd’s character. In 1990, her performance as a cold, widowed woman in the television film People Like Us earned her an Emmy Award.
A new generation of viewers discovered her through Superman Returns (2006), in which she played Martha Kent, Superman’s adoptive mother. The role brought her back into the spotlight decades after her defining performances in classic Hollywood films.
In her personal life, Saint married director and producer Jeffrey Hayden in 1956. Their marriage lasted more than six decades, until Hayden’s death in December 2016 at the age of 90. They had two children, Darrell and Laurette, as well as four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Saint leaves behind a legacy that extends well beyond her association with Hitchcock. From her Oscar-winning debut on the big screen to her later television work and return to blockbuster cinema, she built a career distinguished by versatility, restraint and longevity — remaining a part of Hollywood history for almost eight decades.
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