Eva Marie Saint, a revered actress whose two preeminent performances — On the Waterfront and North by Northwest — encapsulated the glories of the 1950s’ Hollywood studio system, died on Tuesday. She was 102.
Saint’s rep, Jeff Sanderson, confirmed the actress’
death to Rolling Stone, adding that she “died of natural causes surrounded by family and loved ones.”
Born in New Jersey on the Fourth of July in 1924, Saint studied acting in college, initially working in television and on the stage before landing her first film role in the 1954 classic On the Waterfront opposite Marlon Brando. As Edie, the sister of one of Brando’s fellow dock workers who is murdered, Saint radiated a palpable chemistry with her costar, the characters’ burgeoning romance undeniable. Director Elia Kazan noticed her when she was performing in The Trip to Bountiful on Broadway, deciding she was right for Edie. Saint went toe-to-toe with the formidable Brando, which was even more impressive considering she was also juggling a relatively new marriage and her commitments to Bountiful.
“When I did On the Waterfront, I was working in Hoboken during the day,” she recalled 60 years later. “I would go home to 26th West 9th Street, get my darling husband his dinner, and then I would go to the theater.”
The film won eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture and, for Saint, Best Supporting Actress. Saint was pregnant when she accepted the award, giving birth to her son Darrell two days later. “That night was so simple,” she said in 2010 when asked about the Oscar after-party she attended to celebrate. “We had a Chinese dinner and a few beers.”
Later that decade, she would go on to star in Fred Zinnemann’s drug-addiction drama A Hatful of Rain, but her next great triumph was as the mysterious seductress encountered by Cary Grant’s man-on-the-run in 1959’s North by Northwest. She played Eve, who meets Roger on a train, the poor guy having no idea how intimately she’s involved in the massive conspiracy into which he’s stumbled. Sexy and thrilling, the Alfred Hitchcock classic benefited from Saint and Grant’s feisty rapport.
In 2014, Saint detailed how Hitchcock directed her. “Three things,” she said. “Lower your voice. Don’t use your hands. And look directly into Cary Grant’s eyes at all times.”
Saint appeared in films directed by luminaries such as Otto Preminger, Norman Jewison, and John Frankenheimer. She played the mother of Cybill Shepherd’s character on Moonlighting. And she occasionally returned to the stage: In 1994, she starred in A Death of a Salesman alongside Judd Hirsch. Beyond her Oscar win, she took home an Emmy for her work in the 1990 NBC miniseries People Like Us. And as many of her peers and costars died, she served as one of the last bridges to Hollywood’s Golden Age, an ambassador to a halcyon period of American filmmaking.
“The longer you live, I believe, you learn so much about life that you have more to give,” she said in 2014 about being an actor. “It’s interesting. People say, ‘When you watch a film [of yours], how do you feel about it? What do you remember?’ … Well, after it’s been several years, many years, it’s almost another person up on the screen. … But I remember, in all the emotional scenes, what I used at that moment. It’s as clear as a bell.”
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