Eva Marie Saint, who won the supporting actress Oscar for On The Waterfront in 1955 and also starred in North By Northwest, has died. She was 102.
Saint died of natural causes surrounded by family and loved ones at her home in Los Angeles on October 6.
Born July 4, 1924, she grew up in Albany and Delmar, New York, and attended Bowling Green State University in Ohio with the intention of becoming a schoolteacher. Her life changed when she tried for the school play at the suggestion of a drama professor and landed the lead, thus starting a career in film, television, stage and radio spanning 70 years.
She moved to New York and studied at The American Theatre Wing and with Lee Strasberg at The Actors Studio. Television acting roles followed and Saint garnered an Emmy nomination for The Philco Television Playhouse (1954), the first of four before she won in 1990 for People Like Us.
Saint performed on Broadway in The Trip To Bountiful in 1953, which garnered awards and drew the attention of audience member Elia Kazan, who cast her in On The Waterfront the following year. Saint won the supporting actress Oscar for her role opposite Marlon Brando and moved to Los Angeles in 1956, going on to star in an illustrious roster of films including Alfred Hitchcock’s North By Northwest (1959) opposite Cary Grant.
Other roles included The Russians Are Coming The Russians Are Coming (1966), Grand Prix (1966), Loving (1970), and more recently Because Of Winn-Dixie (2005), Superman Returns (2006), and Winter’s Tale (2014) starring Colin Farrell.
Saint worked for a number of charitable causes and in 1951 was married to Jeffrey Hayden, her husband of 65 years who died in December 2016.
She is survived by her children, Darrell and Laurette; four grandchildren, Eli, Tyler, Molly, and Stella; and two great-grandchildren, Arlo and Finley.
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