Eva Marie Saint | Biography & Facts (2024)

Eva Marie Saint (born July 4, 1924, Newark, New Jersey, U.S.) is an American film and television actress known for bringing emotional depth and complexity to her roles, in which she generally played women who appear fragile but have great inner strength.

Saint began acting while she was a student at Bowling Green State University (B.A., 1946). She started her career as a radio actress in New York City, and in 1948 she began taking classes at the Actors Studio. From 1949 she appeared regularly on such television shows as Actor’s Studio (1948–50) and The Prudential Family Playhouse (1950–51). Saint won notice for her performance in a 1953 televised production of Horton Foote’s play The Trip to Bountiful, starring Lillian Gish, and she appeared on Broadway in the same role, also in 1953.

Saint was cast in the role of Edie Doyle, the convent-educated sister of a murdered dockworker and the love interest of the protagonist, played by Marlon Brando, in her debut film, On the Waterfront (1954). Her moving portrayal earned her an Academy Award for best supporting actress. Saint was nominated for an Emmy Award for her performance in the televised play The Middle of the Night, by Paddy Chayefsky (1954), part of the Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse series, and she received a second Emmy nomination for her portrayal of Emily in a televised musical version of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town (1954) on Producers’ Showcase that also featured Paul Newman and Frank Sinatra. In addition, Saint costarred with Bob Hope in the movie That Certain Feeling (1956) and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for her performance in the dramatic film A Hatful of Rain (1957).

Alfred Hitchco*ck cast Saint against type in what was perhaps her most memorable role: a coolly competent spy who falls in love with the protagonist, played by Cary Grant, in North by Northwest (1959). Her most notable subsequent movies included Otto Preminger’s Exodus (1960), Vincente Minnelli’s The Sandpiper (1965), the Cold War comedy The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming! (1966), and the racing film Grand Prix (1966), in which she costarred with James Garner.

Thereafter Saint appeared most frequently in television movies. She played Edith Wilson in the TV movie The First Woman President (1974) and earned an Emmy Award nomination for Taxi!! (1978), a two-hander in which she costarred with Martin Sheen. She played a murder victim’s mother in the miniseries Fatal Vision (1984) and had a recurring role as the mother of the character played by Cybill Shepherd in the series Moonlighting (1985–89). Saint won an Emmy Award for her performance in the miniseries People Like Us (1990), based on a novel by Dominick Dunne. She appeared in several films in the 21st century, including I Dreamed of Africa (2000), Because of Winn-Dixie (2005), Superman Returns (2006), and Winter’s Tale (2014), and she voiced a character in the animated TV series The Legend of Korra (2012–14).