Eva Marie Saint, the Oscar-winning actress who starred in Hollywood classics “On the Waterfront” and “North by Northwest,” died Tuesday, her publicist said. She was 102.
Her representative Jeff Sanderson said she died of natural causes at home in Los Angeles, surrounded by family and loved ones.
Over seven decades, Saint worked with influential filmmakers including Alfred Hitchcock and Elia Kazan, building a celebrated career in film and television that earned her an Oscar and an Emmy.
Her film debut in Kazan’s 1954 crime drama “On the Waterfront” won her the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Playing Edie opposite Marlon Brando’s troubled boxer, Saint was catapulted to Hollywood fame.
Her restrained performance contrasted with Brando’s intense method acting, and critics later recognised it as a standout in a film initially celebrated for its male roles.
“He was adorable — really adorable, but a little frightening,” she recalled. “I felt that he could see right through me.”
Saint went on to star opposite Cary Grant in Hitchcock’s “North by Northwest,” playing a double agent whose glamour concealed her dangerous work.
She was considered a surprise choice, but credited Hitchcock’s meticulous attention to her appearance with helping her inhabit the character.
“He worked with me from the outside in,” she said, explaining that her hair, makeup, clothes and accessories gave her “the sense of a spy lady.”
Saint also starred opposite Paul Newman in Otto Preminger’s “Exodus” in 1960 and Warren Beatty in John Frankenheimer’s “All Fall Down” two years later.
Despite her success, she stepped back to raise her family with director Jeffrey Hayden. Their eldest son, Darrell, was born two days after her Oscar win.
She returned to blockbuster cinema as Superman’s adoptive mother in 2006’s “Superman Returns,” and later appeared in “Winter’s Tale” and “Mariette in Ecstasy.”
Television remained her preferred medium. She won an Emmy in 1990 for playing a wealthy widow in the miniseries “People Like Us.”
Born on July 4, 1924, in Newark, New Jersey, Saint credited her Quaker parents with instilling discipline.
She entered Bowling Green State University intending to become a teacher, but graduated in dramatic arts after discovering theatre. She later trained at New York’s Herbert Berghof Studio and the Actors Studio.
Her marriage to Hayden lasted 65 years, until his death in 2016.
Saint believed age enriched her craft.
“You’ve gone through different emotional experiences in your own life, and hopefully, you understand things better,” she told Turner Classic Movies.
“And that makes you a better actress.” — AFP
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