Eva Marie Saint Dies At 102: All About North By Northwest Actress Who Won National Award For Debut Film

Academy Award winner Eva Marie Saint died at the age of 102. She was known for her debut On the Waterfront that received an Oscar. The actress also starred opposite Cary Grant in Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest. Saint worked even in her 90s and has left an unmatched legacy behind for fans to revisit and cherish. According to reports, she breathed her last at home in Los Angeles on Tuesday. The news was confirmed by her family representative Jeff Sanderson.

In an official statement, Jeff confirmed that the actress had a natural death, surrounded by family and loved ones. Further details on her funeral are yet to be disclosed. She is survived by her two children. Her husband was Jeffrey Hayden. He died in 2016.

Saint had one of the most spectacular debuts in Hollywood history, as the love interest of Marlon Brando’s tormented Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront. Pregnant with her first child, Saint accepted her Oscar from Frank Sinatra and said in her speech, “I think I may have the baby right here.” Her son, Darrell, was born two days later.

The award for the 1954 classic made her an instant star, but she soon astonished Hollywood with a firm independence that would mark her career. She refused offers of studio contracts and declined chances to follow up on her great success, explaining that she was taking time off to become acquainted with her new son. She became a mother again with the arrival of daughter Laurette in 1958.

In her first decade in Hollywood, she appeared in just seven films. She declined such top-level productions as The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit with Gregory Peck, Summer and Smoke with Laurence Harvey and The Rainmaker with Burt Lancaster. She credited her husband, TV and stage director Jeffrey Hayden, with persuading her to star in Hitchcock’s North by Northwest, the classic 1959 thriller in which the actress plays a spy who seduces Grant, but ends up falling for him.

Despite her selective movie choices, Eva Marie Saint did roles in Exodus, Raintree County and All Fall Down. She turned more to television in the 1970s and enjoyed renewed popularity in the 1980s as the mother of Cybill Shepherd in the hit sitcom Moonlighting and as Tom Hanks’ mother in the film comedy Nothing in Common. She won an Emmy for the 1990 miniseries, People Like Us, and had roles in such 21st-century movies as Because of Winn-Dixie, Superman Returns and Winter’s Tale. In 2021, she played Marisa Tomei’s aunt in the brief audio play The Bus Ride, part of The Pack Podcast.