Hollywood is mourning the loss of Oscar-winner Eva Marie Saint, who passed away at age 102.
According to a family spokesperson, she passed from natural causes at her Los Angeles home.
Two Cinema Classics
Saint, whose screen career spanned an extraordinary eight decades, is best known for her roles in two of Hollywood’s most renowned films: 1954’s “On the Waterfront,” in which she won an Oscar while starring opposite Marlon Brando; and “North By Northwest,” Alfred Hitchock’s 1959 thriller in which she co-starred with Cary Grant.
Discussing the latter with Remind Magazine in 2025, Saint admitted she enjoyed making the film as much as generations of viewers have enjoyed watching it.
“By the time I read it the second time I thought, ‘Oh, this would really be fun!’” she said of first reading the script.
“I had such a wonderful experience,” she added. “The first meeting I had with [writer/director Peter Fitzgerald] I just sensed his enthusiasm, then I got all excited again about the making of [‘North By Northwest’]. I think [Peter] caught the fun — the fun of making it … we worked hard, but we had such a good time working with Hitch … and somehow he captured that.”
A Lengthy Hollywood Career
Saint made her screen debut in a 1947 television adaptation of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.”
She continued to rack up TV roles throughout the late 1940s and early ’50s until being cast in “On the Waterfront,” winning the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in her big-screen debut.
That set the tone for what proved to be an enduringly successful Hollywood career, starring in movies including “A Hatful of Rain,” “Exodus,” “All Fall Down,” “The Sandpiper,” “The Russians Are Coming The Russians Are Coming” and “Grand Prix.”
In the 1970s, she pivoted back to television, appearing in numerous TV movies and miniseries (and even a couple episodes of “The Love Boat”).
Of all her various TV projects during those years, it’s arguable the most memorable was her recurring role as Virginia Hayes, mother of Cybill Shepherd‘s Maddie Hayes on 1980s hit “Moonlighting.”
In the years following, Saint continued to be a frequent presence on both the small and large screens, ranging from a guest spot on sitcom “Frasier” to playing Clark Kent’s mom in the 2006 feature “Superman Returns.”
More recently, she lent her voice to the animated series “The Legend of Korra” between 2012 and 2014, and appeared onscreen in the 2019 feature “Mariette in Ecstasy.”
She Called Her Own Shots
Throughout her decades-long career, Saint always approached Hollywood on her own terms.
In a 2014 interview with “CBS Sunday Morning,” Saint was asked if, as the mother of two, she ever experienced issues in balancing her family and her career.
“It was never an issue because I made decisions,” Saint said.
“I had an agent once who wanted me to make many more movies. I said, ‘I can’t. I can only do one a year, if that. I have children, young children,'” she recalled.
“And he said, ‘Well, I guess you won’t be a superstar.’ And I said, ‘Well, I guess not.'”
She was then asked what ever happened to that agent.
“Fired him,” she replied.
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Oscar-Winning Hollywood Legend Eva Marie Saint Has Passed Away at 102