Eva Marie Saint, Golden Age of Hollywood Actress, Dead at 102

Eva Marie Saint, one of the final surviving actors of the Golden Age of Hollywood, has died at age 102.

Saint was born on July 4th, 1924 in Newark, New Jersey, and was raised in New York. After studying acting at Bowling Green State University, she started her career as an NBC page. In 1946, she appeared in the network’s live game show Campus Hoopla, and in 1947, she appeared in a Life Magazine television special about the medium.

In 1953, Saint appeared in The Trip to Bountiful, a play that began as an NBC special before premiering on Broadway. The next year, she made her film debut with On the Waterfront, Elia Kazan’s classic crime drama that starred Marlon Brando as prize fighter Terry Malloy. The film was nominated for 12 Academy Awards, with one going to Saint for Best Supporting Actress.

After On the Waterfront, Saint appeared in the anthology series The Philco Television Playhouse, for which she earned her first Emmy nomination. Her second came for 1955’s television adaptation of the musical Our Town, which also starred Frank Sinatra and Paul Newman. In 1959, Saint starred in Alfred Hitchcock’s spy thriller North by Northwest as Eve Kendall, the femme fatale government agent who becomes intertwined with Cary Grant’s “wrong man” Roger Thornhill. The film marked a noticeable departure in character for Saint, who came up in more serious dramas.

Saint continued to star alongside Hollywood’s biggest names in the 1960s. She reunited with Newman for 1960’s Exodus, while Warren Beatty, Karl Malden, and Angela Lansbury joined the actress for 1962’s All Fall Down. In 1965, Saint appeared alongside Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in The Sandpiper. The next year, she appeared in the satire The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming. 

Saint turned back to television in the late 1970s. She was nominated for an Emmy for 1977’s miniseries How the West Was Won, and again for 1978’s TV film Taxi!!! In 1986, the actress worked with a whole new generation of movie stars when she returned to film for Nothing in Common, which also starred Tom Hanks. In the 2000s, she appeared in films like I Dreamed of Africa, Don’t Come Knocking, Superman Returns, and Because of Winn-Dixie. In 2012, she lent her voice to the Nickelodeon animated series The Legend of Korra. 

Despite garnering numerous nominations over the years, Saint didn’t win her first Emmy until 1990, for her role in the miniseries People Like Us. She received two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame — one for film, and one for television.