Eva Marie Saint, Oscar Winner and Star of 'North by Northwest,' Dies at 102

Eva Marie Saint, the graceful actor who won an Oscar for her film debut opposite Marlon Brando in "On the Waterfront" and held her own against Cary Grant in Alfred Hitchcock's "North by Northwest," died Tuesday at her home in Los Angeles. She was 102.

Saint died of natural causes, her family confirmed.

Discovered on the Broadway stage by director Elia Kazan, Saint was cast as Edie Doyle, the tough but tender girlfriend of Brando's dockworker in the 1954 classic "On the Waterfront." Her performance earned her the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress — an honor she accepted nine months pregnant, famously joking, "I may have the baby right here." Two days after the ceremony, she gave birth to her first son.

She followed that triumph with a role that cemented her place in cinema history: Eve Kendall, the elegant and mysterious woman who seduces Cary Grant's advertising executive on a cross-country train and leads him into a web of espionage in Hitchcock's 1959 masterpiece "North by Northwest." The film's climactic chase across the faces of Mount Rushmore remains one of the most iconic sequences in American cinema.

Over the course of a career spanning more than 60 years, Saint worked with some of Hollywood's greatest leading men — Paul Newman in "Exodus" (1960), Yves Montand in "Grand Prix" (1966), and Gregory Peck in "The Stalking Moon" (1968). She made only about 20 films, deliberately choosing family over superstardom.

When film roles grew scarce, Saint transitioned to television, earning an Emmy Award for the 1990 miniseries "People Like Us" and a recurring role on "Moonlighting." Later film appearances included "Superman Returns" (2006), where she played the adoptive mother of the Man of Steel.

Born July 4, 1924, in Newark, New Jersey, Saint grew up near Albany, New York. She studied drama at Bowling Green State University after switching from teaching, then worked in radio and early live television before Broadway brought her to Kazan's attention.

She is survived by her children Darrell and Laurette, four grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. Her husband, television director Jeffrey Hayden, died in 2016 after 65 years of marriage.

Reporting by the Los Angeles Times. Read the original report: Eva Marie Saint dead at 102.