Eva Marie Saint, who won an Academy Award in 1955 for her gripping movie debut as the shy love interest of Marlon Brando’s longshoreman in “On the Waterfront,” and who proved equally convincing as a stylish siren opposite Cary Grant in the romantic Hitchcock thriller “North by Northwest,” died on Tuesday at her home in Los Angeles. She was 102.
A family representative, Jeff Sanderson, confirmed the death. Blond and delicately beautiful, Ms. Saint had been a working actress for eight years by the time she made her first movie. Her supporting performance in “On the Waterfront” would alone have assured her a place in movie history; the movie remains near the top of the American Film Institute’s list of the country’s greatest films. It won the Oscar for best picture and director (for Elia Kazan), and Mr. Brando took home the award for best actor.
Nine months pregnant with her first child when she picked up her Oscar, she told the audience, “I’m so excited I may have the baby right here.” Stardom beckoned, but Ms. Saint decided to raise a family and to make only one movie a year while her two children were growing up. She preferred “to be a working actress with a home life that worked.”
Nevertheless, Ms. Saint had a fruitful and celebrated career. Almost as acclaimed as her work in “On the Waterfront” was her performance as a seductive mystery woman opposite Mr. Grant in “North by Northwest” (1959), which is also on the A.F.I. list.
Source: New York Times Top Stories · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing