Eva Marie Saint, star of ‘North by Northwest’ and ‘On the Waterfront,’ dies at 102

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Eva Marie Saint, the pale, willowy actor who won an Academy Award for her first movie, “On the Waterfront,” and starred opposite Cary Grant in the Alfred Hitchcock thriller “North by Northwest,” has died. She was 102. 

Saint, whose acting work lasted well into her 90s, died at her home in Los Angeles on Tuesday, confirmed family representative Jeff Sanderson. 

Saint had one of the most spectacular debuts in Hollywood history, as the love interest of Marlon Brando’s tormented Terry Malloy in “On the Waterfront,” and her first trip to the Academy Awards was memorable too. Pregnant with her first child, Saint accepted her Oscar from Frank Sinatra and smilingly murmured a unique winner’s speech: “I think I may have the baby right here.” (Her son, Darrell, was born two days later.)

The award for the 1954 classic made her an instant star, but she soon astonished Hollywood with a firm independence that would mark her career. She refused offers of studio contracts and declined chances to follow up on her great success, explaining that she was taking time off to become acquainted with her new son. (A daughter, Laurette, was born in 1958.)

A curated career

In her first decade in Hollywood, Saint appeared in a mere seven films. She declined such top-level productions as “The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit” with Gregory Peck, “Summer and Smoke” with Laurence Harvey and “The Rainmaker” with Burt Lancaster. She credited her husband, TV and stage director Jeffrey Hayden, with persuading her to star in Hitchcock’s “North by Northwest,” the classic 1959 thriller in which Saint plays a spy who seduces Grant, but ends up falling for him.

“I vividly remember him saying, ‘Honey, I think you should find a quiet spot. I’ll take care of the children and I want you to really think about this and reread this script,’” she told Vanity Fair in 2014. “He was so right. And that’s what husbands are for.”

Instead of being put off by her selectivity, studios continued offering her starring roles in such films as “Exodus” (with Newman), “Raintree County” (Elizabeth Taylor, Montgomery Clift) and “All Fall Down,” with Warren Beatty. 

She turned more to television in the 1970s and enjoyed renewed popularity in the 1980s as the mother of Cybill Shepherd in the hit sitcom “Moonlighting” and as Tom Hanks’ mother in the film comedy “Nothing in Common.” She won an Emmy for the 1990 miniseries “People Like Us,” and had roles in such 21st century movies as “Because of Winn-Dixie,” “Superman Returns” and “Winter’s Tale,” adapted from Mark Helprin’s novel of the same name. In 2021, she played Marisa Tomei’s aunt in the brief audio play “The Bus Ride,” part of “The Pack Podcast.”

Saint was married to Hayden for 65 years, until his death in 2016.

That was her real name

When Saint emerged in the public consciousness, many believed her theatrical-sounding name must have been invented. She was born with it on July 4, 1924, in Newark, New Jersey. The family moved to Delmar, a small town near Albany, New York, where her father was a Goodrich Rubber Co. manager. Eva’s goal was to become a third-grade teacher like her mother, but at Bowling Green State University in Ohio she tried out for a play and won the leading role.

After graduation, she lived with her parents and began hunting for acting jobs in Manhattan. After a fruitless year, she landed a two-line role as a telephone operator on a radio drama and soon was working steadily on soap operas and nighttime dramas, appearing for two years as Claudia on “One Man’s Family.” Network television was booming in the early 1950s, and her looks and dramatic sense made her a favorite with casting people and producers.

She credited Lee Strasberg with helping her overcome shyness

A critical turn in Saint’s career came when she auditioned before Elia Kazan and was accepted into the Actors Studio, which shaped a generation of method-actor stars. She credited acting coach Lee Strasberg with helping her overcome her shyness.

“Lee Strasberg, when he got to know me a little bit, gave me a scene to do where I had to cry in front of my peers,” she told The Santa Barbara Independent in 2009. “I worried about it, I worked on it, I tried to use what I was learning at the studio. I finally did the scene, and I cried, and my peers were crying with me. It was just an incredible moment for me.”

Saint was rejected for the single female role in the play “Mister Roberts,” but was hired to understudy the actor chosen, Jocelyn Brando, Marlon’s sister. In six frustrating months Saint never got to substitute for Brando. She finally made it to Broadway in “A Trip to Bountiful,” which she had played on television.

Kazan invited her to try out for the female lead in “On the Waterfront” by improvising a scene with Brando. She was told to try to stop a young man from entering her apartment. She told the Los Angeles Times in 2001: “All I know is that Marlon got in the door and turned on the music. We started dancing. He flicked my skirt. Kazan saw the sparks fly, and that’s how I got the part.”

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Thomas, a former Associated Press Hollywood correspondent who died in 2014, was the primary writer of this obituary.

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This story has been corrected to show that Saint and Hayden were married for 65 years, not 55.