Eva Marie Saint, Oscar winner for “On the Waterfront” and star of “North by Northwest,” dies at 102
Eva Marie Saint, who won an Academy Award for her very first film role opposite Marlon Brando and later starred with Cary Grant in Alfred Hitchcock’s “North by Northwest,” died Tuesday at her home in Los Angeles. She was 102.
The news: Saint died at home in Los Angeles on Tuesday, family representative Jeff Sanderson confirmed, the Associated Press reported. The BBC and Variety also reported her death. She acted well into her 90s.
A famous debut: Saint won the Oscar for best supporting actress for “On the Waterfront” (1954), playing the love interest of Brando’s Terry Malloy. She was pregnant with her first child when she accepted the award from Frank Sinatra, and her son was born two days later, AP recalled.
A selective career: She turned down studio contracts and several big roles to spend time with her family, AP said. Her husband, director Jeffrey Hayden, persuaded her to take the part of a spy in Hitchcock’s 1959 thriller “North by Northwest.” She went on to star in “Exodus” with Paul Newman and “Raintree County,” and found new audiences in the 1980s as Cybill Shepherd’s mother on TV’s “Moonlighting” and Tom Hanks’ mother in “Nothing in Common.” She won an Emmy for the 1990 miniseries “People Like Us,” and later appeared in “Superman Returns.”
Her life: Saint was born in Newark, New Jersey, on July 4, 1924 — and Eva Marie Saint was her real name, AP noted. She trained at the Actors Studio and was married to Hayden for 65 years, until his death in 2016.
Sources
- PBS News (AP) — Eva Marie Saint, star of ‘On the Waterfront’ and ‘North by Northwest,’ dies at 102
- AP News — Eva Marie Saint, star of ‘North by Northwest,’ dies at 102
- BBC News — Oscar-winning On the Waterfront actress Eva Marie Saint dies aged 102
- Variety — Eva Marie Saint dead: ‘North by Northwest,’ ‘On the Waterfront’ star