Another piece of Hollywood’s Golden Age has quietly slipped away.
Eva Marie Saint, the elegant actress whose career stretched from the early days of television through some of the most beloved films ever made, has died at the age of 102.
For generations of movie lovers, her name was tied to a different kind of Hollywood — glamorous, mysterious and filled with stars who seemed larger than life.
Saint was one of the last surviving links to that era.
A family spokesman said she died Tuesday of natural causes at her home in Los Angeles.
Big-screen debut opposite Marlon Brando
Eva Marie Saint’s career began long before streaming, social media or even television had become part of everyday life. And somehow, she remained a working actress for more than six decades.
She made her big-screen debut opposite Marlon Brando in the 1954 classic On the Waterfront, playing Edie Doyle, the woman who becomes Brando’s love interest.
Looking back on the making of the highly influential film, Saint remembered how director Elia Kazan deliberately threw her off balance during her audition with Marlon Brando.
”He said ‘Brando is the boyfriend of your sister. You’re not used to being with a young man. Don’t let him in the door under any circumstances.’ I don’t know what he told Marlon; you’ll have to ask him—good luck! [Brando] came in and started teasing me. He put me off balance. And I remained off balance for the whole shoot.”
Her performance in On the Waterfront immediately established her as a serious talent.
She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the role in 1955, becoming one of the breakout stars of her generation.
But Saint had already been working for years before Hollywood came calling.
Came from a Quaker family
Born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1924 to a Quaker family, she initially planned to become a teacher. Instead, she found her way into acting, first working in radio and television.
Her first paycheck was reportedly just $10 for working as an off-camera applauder on The Borden Show.
She modeled, appeared in radio serials and took whatever work she could find while trying to establish herself.
Then came television.
In the early 1950s, Saint appeared in productions including One Man’s Family, Philco Playhouse, Robert Montgomery Presents and Studio One. Her performance in The Trip to Bountiful caught the attention of director Elia Kazan.
Kazan invited her to audition for On the Waterfront by improvising a scene with Marlon Brando.
Saint later admitted that she found the experience difficult — but she got the part.
And the rest became Hollywood history.
She appeared opposite Bob Hope, Warren Beatty, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton before landing perhaps her most iconic role of all.
In 1959, Alfred Hitchcock cast her opposite Cary Grant in North by Northwest, turning her into one of the defining screen actresses of the era.
She played Eve Kendall, a glamorous and mysterious woman caught up in an international espionage plot — a role that required her to balance sophistication, danger and humor.
Two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
Saint later recalled that part of the reason she believed Hitchcock noticed her was because she wore beige and white gloves to a lunch meeting with him.
She continued working throughout the 1960s, appearing in Exodus, All Fall Down, The Sandpiper, Grand Prix and Loving. She was also honored with two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame — one recognizing her work in television and the other celebrating her contributions to film.
But as her family grew, Saint made a decision that was unusual for a major Hollywood star at the height of her career.
She stepped back.
She chose to spend more time raising her children rather than constantly chasing the next role.
Her film appearances became more occasional during the 1970s and 1980s, while she continued working in television and on stage.She eventually returned to the big screen, appearing in Nothing in Common with Tom Hanks and Jackie Gleason in 1986.
She continued taking on television roles as well and finally won an Emmy in 1990 for the miniseries People Like Us, after receiving several previous nominations.
And then, decades after sharing the screen with Brando in On the Waterfront, Saint found herself connected to him once again.
In 2006, she played Martha Kent, Superman’s adoptive mother, in Superman Returns.
How she stayed so young
The movie used footage of Brando as Jor-El, allowing Saint to be reunited on screen with her former co-star more than half a century after their breakthrough film.
Saint’s final big-screen appearance came in 2014, when she appeared in Winter’s Tale. By then, she had lived through virtually every chapter of modern Hollywood.
She had watched black-and-white films give way to color, television transform entertainment, studios change, stars come and go and an entirely new generation of actors take over the screen.
Through it all, she remained connected to the world that had first made her famous.
”You know how to stay young? Go with the flow,” she once said and added:
”It’s today and tomorrow, and don’t get cranky”.
In 2000, she hosted a TCM documentary about the making of North by Northwest. In 2009, she returned to the Academy Awards stage to present the Oscar for supporting actress — 55 years after winning the same award herself.
It is difficult to imagine a career that better connects the Hollywood of yesterday with the Hollywood of today.
Eva Marie Saint married television director Jeffrey Hayden in 1951, and the couple remained together until his death in 2016. They had two children, Darrell and Laurette, and later four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
With Eva Marie Saint gone, another living connection to Hollywood’s Golden Age has disappeared.
The movies remain.
The photographs remain.
The performances remain.
And somewhere in those old black-and-white frames and Technicolor classics is a woman who once walked onto a set as a young, relatively unknown actress — and ended up becoming part of Hollywood history.
She was 102.
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