The actor won an Academy Award for her debut in “On the Waterfront” and later starred in “North by Northwest.”
Eva Marie Saint, the Oscar-winning actor who debuted in “On the Waterfront,” died Tuesday at her home in Los Angeles. She was 102.
Family representative Jeff Sanderson confirmed Eva Marie Saint’s passing. Her acting career lasted well into her 90s.
Saint made her film debut as the love interest of Marlon Brando’s character, Terry Malloy, in the 1954 classic “On the Waterfront.” The role won her an Academy Award. Pregnant with her first child, Saint accepted the Oscar from Frank Sinatra and told the crowd, “I think I may have the baby right here.” Her son, Darrell, was born two days later.
Choosing her roles
The Oscar made Saint an immediate star, but she turned down studio contract offers to take time off with her newborn son. A daughter, Laurette, was born in 1958.
Saint appeared in seven films during her first decade in Hollywood. She turned down roles in “The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit,” “Summer and Smoke” and “The Rainmaker.” Her husband, television and stage director Jeffrey Hayden, convinced her to take the role of a spy who seduces Cary Grant in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1959 thriller “North by Northwest.”
“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. Saint and Hayden were married for 65 years until his death in 2016.
Studios continued offering her work, including roles in “Exodus” with Newman, “Raintree County” alongside Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift, and “All Fall Down” with Warren Beatty.
Saint shifted toward television in the 1970s and earned an Emmy for the 1990 miniseries “People Like Us.” She played Cybill Shepherd’s mother in “Moonlighting” and Tom Hanks’ mother in the film “Nothing in Common.” Her later movie appearances included “Because of Winn-Dixie,” “Superman Returns” and “Winter’s Tale.”
From teaching plans to Broadway
Saint was born in Newark, New Jersey, on July 4, 1924, using her real birth name. Her family moved to Delmar, New York, where her father was a manager for Goodrich Rubber Co. She originally intended to become a third-grade teacher like her mother, but she tried out for a play at Bowling Green State University in Ohio and won the lead.
After graduating, Saint looked for acting work in Manhattan. Following a year without success, she got a two-line role as a telephone operator on a radio drama. That led to parts on soap operas and a two-year run as Claudia on “One Man’s Family.”
Her career took a major turn when she auditioned for Elia Kazan and entered the Actors Studio. Saint credited acting coach Lee Strasberg with helping her overcome shyness by assigning her an emotional crying scene in front of her peers.
Saint worked on Broadway in “A Trip to Bountiful” before Kazan asked her to audition for “On the Waterfront.” During an improvisation where she had to keep Brando from entering an apartment, the two began dancing.
“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,” Saint told the Los Angeles Times in 2001.
In 2021, Saint played Marisa Tomei’s aunt in the audio play “The Bus Ride” for “The Pack Podcast.”
