The Academy Award-winning actor’s career began on television before landmark roles with Elia Kazan and Alfred Hitchcock made her a fixture of classic Hollywood.
Eva Marie Saint died at 102 at her home in Los Angeles, her representative said. La Nación reported her death on October 6; the Associated Press and El País also confirmed the news. Saint was among the last surviving actors to have worked with directors of classic Hollywood.
Her film debut became a breakthrough: she played Marlon Brando’s love interest in Elia Kazan’s On the Waterfront (1954), earning the Academy Award for best supporting actress. Five years later, she starred as Eve Kendall opposite Cary Grant in Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest. Her notable films also included Otto Preminger’s Exodus (1960), with Paul Newman.
Saint was born on July 4, 1924, in Newark, New Jersey. She studied at a university in Ohio and initially planned to become a teacher, then acted in radio dramas and worked in television. After her early film success, she continued on Broadway and in television series. Later generations knew her from Moonlighting, Nothing in Common and her role as Martha Kent in Superman Returns (2006). Her final film appearance was in Winter’s Tale (2014).
Saint was married to producer and director Jeffrey Hayden for 65 years, until his death in 2016. In 2018, at age 93, she presented the Academy Award for costume design and joked that she was older than the Academy itself.