Eva Marie Saint, the Oscar-winning actress whose performances in On the Waterfront and Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest made her one of the defining stars of postwar Hollywood, died Tuesday at 102. Saint died at her home in Los Angeles of natural causes, according to multiple reports. Her death marks the passing of one of the last major performers whose career linked the golden age of Hollywood, the rise of television drama and the modern film era.
Saint was born July 4, 1924, in Newark, New Jersey, and was raised in New York. She attended Bowling Green State University in Ohio, initially intending to become a teacher before discovering acting through college theater productions The actress won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her film debut as Edie Doyle in Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront in 1954, opposite Marlon Brando, becoming only the fourth performer to win a supporting actress Oscar for a first screen role. The award was presented at the 1955 Academy Awards.
Her portrayal of the grieving sister of a slain longshoreman helped elevate the film into the ranks of American cinema's most enduring classics. More than half a century later, critics and audiences continued to regard it as one of the defining debuts in movie history. Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest cemented her place in Hollywood.
In the 1959 thriller, she played Eve Kendall, the sophisticated and enigmatic woman who draws Cary Grant's Roger Thornhill into a deadly espionage plot. The role became one of the most celebrated female performances in Hitchcock's career and remains synonymous with Saint's legacy. Although she appeared in relatively few films compared with many of her contemporaries, Saint assembled a body of work that stretched across more than seven decades.
Her major screen credits included A Hatful of Rain (1957), Raintree County (1957), Exodus (1960), 36 Hours (1964), The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming (1966), Grand Prix (1966), The Stalking Moon (1968), Nothing in Common (1986), Because of Winn-Dixie (2005), Superman Returns (2006) and Winter's Tale (2014). Saint often said she deliberately limited her film work in order to focus on family life. She married director and producer Jeffrey Hayden in 1951, and the couple remained together for 65 years until his death in 2016.
Before Hollywood came calling, Saint was among the first generation of stars to emerge from live television. After graduating from Bowling Green State University, she built a reputation through dramatic anthology programs including Studio One, Robert Montgomery Presents and Philco Playhouse. Her television work earned early Emmy nominations and helped establish her as one of the medium's most promising young performers.
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