EVA MARIE SAINT (1924 - 2026)

Eva Marie Saint, one of the last surviving stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood, has passed away at the remarkable age of one hundred and two. The luminous actress would win the 1954 Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, which was her film debut, for "On The Waterfront" and would go on to have an extensive career in film, the stage and television.

While Saint was attending college at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, she began studying acting and appeared in some stage productions there. After graduating in 1946, Saint headed to New York and one of her first jobs was being a part of the NBC Page program. She would later get bit parts in some NBC television shows. Her first big break came when she became part of the original Broadway cast of Horton Foote's "A Trip To Bountiful" in 1953 and would also appear in the live television version on NBC's Philco Television Playhouse.

This helped bring her attention to Elia Kazan for his film, "On The Waterfront" which starred Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb, Rod Steiger. This story about widespread corruption, extortion, and racketeering on the waterfronts of Hoboken, NJ would go on to receive twelve Academy Award nominations, winning eight, including for Saint, Best Actor for Brando, Best Director for Kazan and Best Picture.

Saint would go on to co-star with Bob Hope in the romantic-comedy, "That Certain Feeling", the Civil War drama, "Raintree County" with Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift and starred with Don Murray in "A Hatful of Rain", an early drug-addiction drama. Then Alfred Hitchcock came calling (and surprising many) by casting her as the femme fatale in his now classic 1959 suspense thriller, "North by Northwest" with Cary Grant and James Mason. The director worked with Saint to shed her "good girl" image, transforming her into a glamourous ice blonde by having her lower her voice and wearing form-fitting outfits. "North by Northwest" was a box-office hit, remains a highly influential film and one of Saint's most notable movie roles.

While Saint was enjoying this high-profile career, she decided to step back a bit in order to spend more time with her husband, the director Jeffrey Hayden and their two children. Saint and Hayden would be married for sixty-five years until Hayden's death in 2016. She still did made a few films throughout the 1960's: "Exodus" with Paul Newman, "All Fall Down" with Warren Beatty, Norman Jewison's "The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming" and "Grand Prix" with James Garner.

By the 1970's, she would be working mostly in television but by the 1980's, Saint would make a return to films, making the occasional appearance in "Nothing in Common"(playing Tom Hanks' mother), "I Dreamed of Africa", "Because of Winn-Dixie" and "Superman Returns" where she played Martha Kent.