Eva Marie Saint, the Oscar and Emmy-winning actress who starred in some of the most beloved and respected films of mid-20th-century Hollywood, has died at 102. Her representative confirmed that she passed away on Tuesday of natural causes at her home in Los Angeles, surrounded by family and loved ones.
Trained in the method at the Actors Studio, Saint combined an incisive acting ability with a dazzling beauty that was never limited to a decorative role alongside her male co-stars. Whether as the loyal and hardened girlfriend of the boxer played by Marlon Brando in Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront, or as the government agent in North by Northwest, where she subverted the archetype of the cold blonde that Alfred Hitchcock often used in his plots, Saint brought intelligence and nuances of rebellion to every character.
From New Jersey to Broadway and live television
Born on July 4, 1924, in Newark, New Jersey, and raised in Albany and Delmar, New York, Eva Marie Saint studied acting at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, an institution that awarded her a lifetime achievement award in 2018. After graduating in 1946, she moved to New York, where she studied at The American Theatre Wing and with Lee Strasberg at The Actors Studio while working as a page at NBC.
In the late 1940s, she began appearing on television programs, many of them live, a common practice in New York at the time. In 1950, she landed a recurring role as Lieutenant Wilma Deering in the science fiction series Buck Rogers. Three years later, she made her Broadway debut in Horton Foote's The Trip To Bountiful, alongside Lillian Gish and Jo Van Fleet. For her performance as Thelma, she received the 1954 Outer Critics Circle Special Award.
The following year, she earned two Emmy nominations for Best Actress in a Single Performance: one for Paddy Chayefsky's Middle of the Night, and another for the television adaptation of Thornton Wilder's Our Town, in which she co-starred with Paul Newman and Frank Sinatra.
On the Waterfront and the Oscar that made her a legend
The same year she won the Outer Critics Circle Award, Saint played the role that would define her career: Edie Doyle in On the Waterfront. Her character represented the moral center of a dark story marked by corruption and violence on the docks, and her on-screen relationship with the boxer played by Marlon Brando became one of the most memorable romantic pairings of the era.
Both Brando and Saint won Oscars for the film, and until her death, she was the oldest living Oscar winner.
In 1956, she moved to Los Angeles, the city where she would reside until her passing. After On the Waterfront came A Hatful of Rain in 1957, the beginning of a five-year, five-film streak that would culminate in North by Northwest.
North by Northwest, alongside Cary Grant
Released in 1959, North by Northwest is considered one of Alfred Hitchcock's crowning achievements. Saint co-starred with Cary Grant in a spy thriller that broke with the director's tradition of presenting his blondes as passive victims. Her character, a government agent, proved to be as cunning and determined as Grant's.
The film includes one of Hitchcock's most famous action sequences, with both actors climbing Mount Rushmore to escape their pursuers, as well as one of the most remembered seduction dialogues in classic cinema.
Other notable titles in her filmography
During that same period, Saint participated in Raintree County alongside Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift, in Otto Preminger's historical drama Exodus, where she reunited with Paul Newman, and in 1962 in John Frankenheimer's All Fall Down, with a cast that included Warren Beatty, Angela Lansbury, Brandon de Wilde, and Karl Malden.
After marrying director Jeffrey Hayden in 1951, with whom she had two children, Saint slowed her film work for several years, focusing on television and occasional films such as the spy thriller 36 Hours (1964). She later returned to film with The Sandpiper (1965), alongside Elizabeth Taylor; Norman Jewison's The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming (1966); and John Frankenheimer's Grand Prix (1966), alongside James Garner.
An extensive television career
From the 1970s onwards, most of Saint's work took place on television. She appeared in episodes of The Love Boat and Moonlighting, and starred in notable productions such as The Best Little Girl in the World (1981), one of the first films to address anorexia nervosa.
In 1986, she returned to film after more than a decade, playing the mother of Tom Hanks' character in Garry Marshall's Nothing in Common. In 1990, she won an Emmy for her role in the NBC miniseries People Like Us, based on a novel by Dominick Dunne. At the end of that decade, she appeared on Frasier as the mother of Roz Doyle, a character played by Peri Gilpin.
She also received three other Emmy nominations, including for Taxi!!! (1978) and the Western miniseries How the West Was Won (1977). Her numerous television credits also include Fatal Vision (1984), A Year in the Life (1986), The Last Days Of Patton (1986), My Antonia (1995), the miniseries Titanic (1996), and Open House (2003), as well as several Christmas specials such as A Christmas to Remember (1978) and Papa's Angels (2000). She also voiced a recurring character in the animated series The Legend of Korra (2012).
In the final decades of her career, she participated in titles such as Because of Winn-Dixie (2005), Superman Returns (2006), Winter's Tale (2014), and, in 2019, her final film, Mariette in Ecstasy.
Theater, production, and activism
In addition to The Trip To Bountiful, Saint performed on Broadway in plays such as The Lincoln Mask and Duet for One, and on stages across the country in productions such as Summer and Smoke and Desire Under The Elms at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. She also co-starred in a production of Death of a Salesman alongside Judd Hirsch and received the L.A. Dramalogue award for The Country Girl.
Together with her husband, director Jeffrey Hayden, she produced an acclaimed version of August Wilson's Fences at the Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles in 2006. The couple also produced documentaries for PBS, including Children in America's Schools, with Bill Moyers, for which they won an Emmy.
For years, Saint supported causes such as the Motion Picture and Television Fund and the Epilepsy Foundation of Los Angeles, and was a pioneering advocate for banning the use of mobile phones while driving.
Her final public appearance at the Oscars
In 2018, at age 93, Saint took the stage at the 90th Academy Awards ceremony to present the award for Best Costume Design. To the audience's ovation, she said: That means a lot to me, having lost my husband last year after 65 years together. We came to the Academy every year, and I miss him, but that made up for it. It was so loud that I know he heard it.
She then added: And I also just realized something. I am older than the Academy. By four months, maybe five. I am very proud of that. You have to keep going.
Eva Marie Saint leaves behind her two children, Darrell and Laurette; her grandchildren Eli, Tyler, Molly, and Stella; and her great-grandchildren Arlo and Finley. Her husband, Jeffrey Hayden, to whom she was married for 65 years, passed away in December 2016.
Frequently asked questions about Eva Marie Saint
How did Eva Marie Saint die?
As confirmed by her representative, Eva Marie Saint died on Tuesday of natural causes at her home in Los Angeles, surrounded by family and loved ones, at the age of 102.
For which film did Eva Marie Saint win an Oscar?
Eva Marie Saint won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Edie Doyle in Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront, alongside Marlon Brando.
What role did she play in North by Northwest?
In Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest, she played a government agent who gets involved with the character of Cary Grant, a man mistaken for a spy, breaking with the usual archetype of the blonde victims in Hitchcock's cinema.
What other awards did Eva Marie Saint receive?
In addition to the Oscar, she won an Emmy in 1990 for the miniseries People Like Us and received several additional Emmy nominations, including for Taxi!!! and the miniseries How the West Was Won.
Who survives Eva Marie Saint?
She is survived by her two children, Darrell and Laurette; her grandchildren Eli, Tyler, Molly, and Stella; and her great-grandchildren Arlo and Finley. Her husband, director Jeffrey Hayden, passed away in December 2016 after 65 years of marriage.
