By Danica Ward
Staff Writer
Academy and Emmy-award winning actress Eva Marie Saint has died at 102 years old.
A career spanning nine decades, Saint was known for her roles in classic Hollywood films such as “North by Northwest” and “On the Waterfront.”
The actress was born on July 4, 1924 in Newark, New Jersey, and died on Oct. 6 in Los Angeles. Saint was raised by Quaker parents, and attended Bethlehem Central High School in Delmar, New York where she graduated in 1942. She finished her academic career in 1946 with an acting degree from Bowling Green State University in Ohio, and was an active member of the Delta Gamma sorority and Theta Alpha Phi theater fraternity. From there, Saint began her career with both television and radio appearances.
Saint was both one of the earliest and oldest living stars to receive an Academy Award, as one of the last surviving stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood, which spanned from the late 1920s to the early 1960s.
Her famous co-stars included Marlon Brando and Cary Grant, among many others throughout her career in both film, television and Broadway. In addition to her Academy and Emmy awards, Saint was also nominated for two BAFTA awards and one Golden Globe.
In “On the Waterfront,” Saint played Edie Doyle, a sister seeking revenge for her brother’s murder, and aiding leading man Brando to testify for himself in a court case against Hoboken’s most powerful mob boss. Not only did Saint win the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in this role at 30 years old, but the film also won Best Picture and Best Actor among others at the 27th Academy Awards in 1955.
Before her passing, Saint was the longest living actor to have received an Academy Award, having received the accolade 71 years ago. Now, actress Joanne Woodward is the longest living Oscar winner at 96 years old, for her Best Actress award in “The Three Faces of Eve” in 1958 at the 30th Academy Awards.
“North by Northwest” saw Saint in a completely different light a few years later. Acting alongside the iconic Grant as Eve Kendall, the two gave director Alfred Hitchcock one of his most famous suspense films. The combination of a man being mistaken as a government agent and a mysterious woman he meets on his cross-country journey earned the film three Academy Award nominations and other industry honors after its 1959 release.
Saint’s delicate features and innate talent carried her through her career and propelled her through her forays into different fields of performance. Once the 1950s hit, Saint only acted intermittently. She transferred from film into primarily television and the stage, acting in ABC’s “Moonlighting” and portraying Martha Kent in the 2006 film “Superman Returns.”
From winning an Oscar playing a chaste Catholic schoolgirl to acting as one of Hitchcock’s femme fatales, and every role in between, Saint cemented herself as a versatile Hollywood icon.
