Eva Marie Saint

Eva Marie Saint
as Eve Kendall in Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest (1959)
Born	July 4, 1924 (1924-07-04) (age 85) Newark, New Jersey, U.S.
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1948–present
Spouse(s)	Jeffrey Hayden (1951–present) (2 children)

Eva Marie Saint (born July 4, 1924) is an American actress who has starred in films, on Broadway and television in a career spanning seven decades. She won an Academy Award for her feature film debut in On the Waterfront (1954), and later appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller North by Northwest (1959). Saint received Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations for A Hatful of Rain (1957) and won an Emmy Award for the miniseries People Like Us (1990). Her film career also includes a lead role in Exodus (1960) and supporting roles in Because of Winn-Dixie (2005), and Superman Returns (2006).

Early life

Saint was born in Newark, New Jersey, the daughter of Eva Marie (née Rice) and John Merle Saint.^[1] She attended Bethlehem Central High School in Delmar, New York, graduating in 1942. Eva Marie was inducted into the high school's hall of fame in 2006. She studied acting at Bowling Green State University, while a member of Delta Gamma Sorority. There is a theater on Bowling Green's campus named for her. She was an active member in the theater honorary fraternity, Theta Alpha Phi.

Early television career

Saint's introduction to television began as an NBC page.^[2] In the late 1940s, she began doing extensive work in radio and television before winning the Drama Critics Award for her Broadway stage role in the Horton Foote play The Trip to Bountiful (1953), in which she co-starred with such formidable actors as Lillian Gish and Jo Van Fleet. In 1955, she was nominated for her first Emmy for "Best Actress In A Single Performance" on The Philco Television Playhouse for playing the young mistress of middle-aged E. G. Marshall in Middle of the Night by Paddy Chayevsky. She won another Emmy nomination for the 1955 television musical version of the Thornton Wilder classic play Our Town with co-stars Paul Newman (in his only musical) and Frank Sinatra. Her success and acclaim were of such a high level that the young Saint earned the nickname "the Helen Hayes of television."

Film debut

Saint in On the Waterfront, 1954

Saint's first feature motion picture role was in On the Waterfront (1954), directed by Elia Kazan and starring Marlon Brando — a performance for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Her role as Edie Doyle (whose brother's death sets the film's drama in motion), which she won over such leading contenders as Claire Trevor, Nina Foch, Katy Jurado, and Jan Sterling also earned her a British Academy of Film and Television Award nomination for "Most Promising Newcomer." In his New York Times review, film critic Bosley Crowther wrote:

"In casting Eva Marie Saint — a newcomer to movies from TV and Broadway — Mr. Kazan has come up with a pretty and blond artisan who does not have to depend on these attributes. Her parochial school training is no bar to love with the proper stranger. Amid scenes of carnage, she gives tenderness and sensitivity to genuine romance."^[3]

In a 2000 interview in Premiere magazine, Saint recalled making the hugely influential film:

The watershed success of the film launched Saint into many of the best known films of her early screen career. They include starring with Don Murray in the pioneering drug-addiction drama, A Hatful of Rain (1957), for which she received a nomination for the "Best Foreign Actress" award from the British Academy of Film and Television, and the lavish Civil War epic Raintree County, opposite Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift.

Hitchcock blonde era

in North by Northwest, 1959

Legendary director Alfred Hitchcock surprised many by choosing Saint over dozens of other candidates for the femme fatale role in what was to become a suspense classic North by Northwest (1959) with Cary Grant and James Mason. Written by Ernest Lehman, the film updated and expanded upon the director's early "wrong man" spy adventures of the '30s, '40s, and '50s, including The 39 Steps, Young and Innocent, and Foreign Correspondent. North by Northwest became a box-office hit and an influence on spy films for decades. The film ranks number forty on the American Film Institute's list of the 100 Greatest American Movies of All Time.

At the time of the film's production, much publicity was garnered by Hitchcock's decision to cut Saint's waist-length blonde hair for the first time in her career. Hitchcock explained at the time, "Short hair gives Eva a more exotic look, in keeping with her role of the glamorous woman of my story. I wanted her dressed like a kept woman — smart, simple, subtle and quiet. In other words, anything but the bangles and beads type." The director also worked with Saint to make her voice lower and huskier and even personally chose costumes for her during a shopping trip to Bergdorf Goodman in New York City.

The change in Saint's screen persona, coupled with her adroit performance as a seductive woman of mystery who keeps Cary Grant (and the audience) off-balance, was widely heralded. In his New York Times review of August 7, 1959. critic Bosley Crowther wrote, "In casting Eva Marie Saint as [Cary Grant's] romantic vis-a-vis, Mr. Hitchcock has plumbed some talents not shown by the actress heretofore. Although she is seemingly a hard, designing type, she also emerges both the sweet heroine and a glamorous charmer." In 2000, recalling her experience making the picture with Cary Grant and Hitchcock, Saint said, "[Grant] would say, 'See, Eva Marie, you don't have to cry in a movie to have a good time. Just kick up your heels and have fun.' Hitchcock said, 'I don't want you to do a sink-to-sink movie again, ever. You've done these black-and-white movies like On the Waterfront. It's drab in that tenement house. Women go to the movies, and they've just left the sink at home. They don't want to see you at the sink.' I said, 'I can't promise you that, Hitch, because I love those dramas.'"

Mid-career

Although North by Northwest might have propelled her to the top ranks of stardom, she elected to limit film work in order to spend time with her husband since 1951, director Jeffrey Hayden, and their two children. Nevertheless, in the 1960s, Saint continued to distinguish herself in both high-profile and offbeat pictures. She co-starred again with Paul Newman in the historical drama about the founding of the state of Israel Exodus (1960), directed by Otto Preminger. She also co-starred with Warren Beatty, Karl Malden, and Angela Lansbury as a tragic beauty in the 1962 drama All Fall Down. Based upon a novel by James Leo Herlihy and a screenplay by William Inge, the film was directed by John Frankenheimer.

She was seen with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in the melodrama The Sandpiper for Vincente Minnelli, and with James Garner in the World War II thriller 36 Hours, directed by George Seaton. Saint joined an all-star cast in the comedic satire The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming, directed by Norman Jewison and the international racing drama Grand Prix presented in Cinerama and directed by Frankenheimer. Although she was announced as the leading lady opposite Steve McQueen in Jewison's ultra-stylish romantic caper film The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), the meteoric rise of newcomer Faye Dunaway, who was cast instead, cost Saint a glamorous and sexy role.

In 1970, she received some of her best reviews for Loving, co-starring as the wife of George Segal in a critically-acclaimed but underseen drama about a commercial artist's relationship with his wife and other women. Because of the mostly second-rate film roles that came her way in the 1970s, Saint returned to television and the stage in the 1980s. She appeared in a number of made-for-TV movies and played the mother of Cybill Shepherd on the hit television series Moonlighting over a three-year period. She received an Emmy nomination for the 1977 miniseries How The West Was Won, and a 1978 Emmy nomination for Taxi!!!.

Later career

Saint in September 1990

Saint returned to the big screen for the first time in over a decade as Tom Hanks’ mother in the Garry Marshall-directed comedy Nothing in Common (1986). Critics applauded her return to features, but Saint was soon back on the small screen in numerous projects.

After receiving five nominations, Saint won her first Emmy Award for the 1990 miniseries film People Like Us. She appeared in a number of television productions in the 1990s and was cast as the mother of Frasier Crane's radio producer, Roz Doyle, in a 1999 episode of the hit comedy series Frasier.

In 2000, she returned to feature films once again in I Dreamed of Africa with Kim Basinger. In 2005 she co-starred with Jessica Lange and Sam Shepard in Don't Come Knocking. Also in 2005, she appeared in in the family film Because of Winn-Dixie, co-starring Annasophia Robb, Jeff Daniels and Cicely Tyson.

In 2006, Saint appeared in Superman Returns, as Martha Kent, the adoptive mother of Superman, alongside Brandon Routh, Kevin Spacey, Kate Bosworth, and a computer-generated performance from her On The Waterfront co-star Marlon Brando.

Saint has appeared in a number of television specials and documentaries, particularly in the past decade, including The Making of North by Northwest, which she narrated and hosted. In 2009, she made a rare public appearance at the 81st Academy Awards ceremony as a Best Supporting Actress presenter.

She has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, for motion pictures at 6624 Hollywood Boulevard, and television at 6730 Hollywood Boulevard.

Personal life

Saint has been married to producer/director Jeffrey Hayden since October 28, 1951. They have two children, Darryl (born April 1, 1955) and Laurette (born July 19, 1958), and three grandchildren.

Filmography

Awards and nominations

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Eva Marie Saint

• Eva Marie Saint at the Internet Movie Database
• Idol Chatter: Eva Marie Saint
• On Life Between Brando’s Babe and Superman’s Mom (Moving Pictures Magazine interview)