Eva Marie Saint, whose film debut in “On the Waterfront” earned her an Academy Award before she went on to star opposite Cary Grant in Alfred Hitchcock’s “North by Northwest,” died Tuesday at her Los Angeles home. She was 102.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom.
Eva Marie Saint, one of the last surviving stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age and an Oscar winner for her first movie role, died Tuesday at her home in Los Angeles. She was 102.
Family representative Jeff Sanderson confirmed her death and said Saint died of natural causes surrounded by family and loved ones.
Saint entered Hollywood with one of the most celebrated debuts in film history, playing Edie Doyle opposite Marlon Brando in Elia Kazan’s 1954 drama “On the Waterfront.”
Her performance earned her the Academy Award for best supporting actress and immediately established her as a major star. The movie ultimately won eight Oscars, including best picture and best actor for Brando.
Saint was pregnant with her first child when she accepted the award from Frank Sinatra.
“I think I may have the baby right here,” she said during her acceptance speech.
Her son, Darrell, was born two days later.
Despite the instant success, Saint resisted the conventional studio system and declined long-term Hollywood contracts. She also turned down several prominent projects while taking time away from acting to raise her family.
During her first decade in movies, she appeared in only a handful of films, choosing roles selectively rather than attempting to capitalize immediately on her Oscar win.
Her husband, television and stage director Jeffrey Hayden, later encouraged her to accept one of the roles that would define her career: Eve Kendall opposite Cary Grant in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1959 thriller “North by Northwest.”
Saint recalled in a 2014 interview that Hayden urged her to reconsider the script carefully.
“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 said.
“He was so right. And that’s what husbands are for.”
The role transformed Saint’s screen image.
In “On the Waterfront,” she had played a vulnerable young woman drawn into Brando’s battle against corruption on the New Jersey docks. In “North by Northwest,” Hitchcock cast her as a poised and mysterious intelligence operative who seduces Grant’s character before ultimately falling in love with him.
The two performances became the best-known roles of a career that stretched across more than seven decades.
Saint also appeared in “Raintree County” with Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift, “Exodus” with Paul Newman, “All Fall Down” with Warren Beatty, “Grand Prix,” “A Hatful of Rain” and “The Stalking Moon.”
She increasingly turned toward television beginning in the 1970s and remained active well into later life.
Among her best-known television appearances was a recurring role as the mother of Cybill Shepherd’s character in “Moonlighting.”
She won a Primetime Emmy in 1990 for the miniseries “People Like Us.”
Saint also played Tom Hanks’ mother in the 1986 comedy “Nothing in Common” and later appeared in “Because of Winn-Dixie,” “Superman Returns” and “Winter’s Tale.”
Her career extended into her 90s.
In 2021, she performed in the audio drama “The Bus Ride,” part of “The Pack Podcast,” playing the aunt of Marisa Tomei’s character.
Saint was born July 4, 1924, in Newark, New Jersey. Her family later moved to Delmar, near Albany, New York, where her father worked as a manager for the Goodrich Rubber Co.
She originally planned to become a teacher like her mother.
That changed at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, where she became involved in theater and discovered an aptitude for acting. The university later honored her career and named a theater in her honor.
After graduating in 1946, Saint moved with her family to Long Island and began looking for work in New York.
Her early acting jobs were modest. She landed a brief role as a telephone operator in a radio production and soon began appearing regularly in radio dramas, soap operas and live television.
The rapidly expanding television industry of the early 1950s gave Saint increasing visibility.
A major turning point came when she was accepted into the Actors Studio, where she studied under Lee Strasberg.
Saint later credited Strasberg with helping her overcome her natural 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,” Saint recalled in a 2009 interview.
“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.”
Before breaking into film, Saint appeared on Broadway in Horton Foote’s “The Trip to Bountiful,” a role she had previously performed on television.
Kazan later invited her to audition for “On the Waterfront” by improvising a scene with Brando.
Saint recalled that she was instructed to prevent Brando’s character from getting into her apartment.
“All I know is that Marlon got in the door and turned on the music,” she told the Los Angeles Times in 2001. “We started dancing. He flicked my skirt. Kazan saw the sparks fly, and that’s how I got the part.”
Saint’s personal life was unusually stable by Hollywood standards.
She married Hayden in 1951, and the couple remained together for 65 years until his death in 2016.
They had two children, Darrell and Laurette.
Saint’s reputation endured partly because of how carefully she managed her career.
She worked with many of Hollywood’s leading directors and actors but repeatedly chose family life over constant production and refused to allow early fame to dictate how frequently she appeared on screen.
By the time of her death, she had become one of the last living links to the generation of performers who helped define American film in the 1950s.
Her career began with an Oscar-winning debut and continued through radio, Broadway, live television, classic Hollywood films, network television, modern studio movies and audio drama.
Saint died Oct. 6, 2026, more than 72 years after “On the Waterfront” first made her a star.
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