How late Eva Marie Saint reluctantly became last star of Hollywood’s golden age
OSCAR-winner Eva Marie Saint, who has died aged 102, was a reluctant star who became a Hollywood legend.
From Alfred Hitchcock to Marlon Brando, the girl from New Jersey took on the biggest names in the business and triumphed.
She was nine months pregnant when she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in On The Waterfront in 1955, joking: “I may have the baby right here!”
Two days later her son — named Darrell, not Oscar — arrived.
Eva’s powerhouse performance alongside Marlon Brando was even more remarkable as it was her first film.
She had little truck with modern stars’ long acceptance speeches.
The oldest living Oscar winner said of her two-sentence appearance: “That was a lot for someone to say in those days.
“Most people just said thank you and walked off the stage, which I loved.
“It’s gotten out of hand these days where people have to be funny and go on and on and on.”
With the worldwide success of follow-up movie North By Northwest, an agent pushed her to make more films and become a “superstar”.
Her reply was simple: “I can’t. I can only do one a year. I have young children.”
Her agent’s response was: “Well, I guess you won’t be a superstar.”
Her perfectly calm reply: “Well, I guess not.”
But she became one anyway, and her legendary beauty even inspired the 1984 song Rattlesnakes by Lloyd Cole.
Born in Newark, New Jersey, on July 4, 1924, Eva was from a Quaker background.
“I was in the chorus in high school, not a soloist,” she once said.
“I was on the basketball team. I played the violin, part of the orchestra. I never wanted to be out there alone. Ever.”
She studied acting at university in Ohio, then moved to New York, working in theatre and television.
Her big break came in the Broadway play The Trip To Bountiful, where she caught the eye of director Elia Kazan, who cast the then 29-year-old alongside Brando in On The Waterfront.
She said: “Brando was wonderful. Probably the finest actor I’ve ever worked with.”
But he was fickle. She said: “I only saw him once after On The Waterfront.
Years later, Elizabeth Taylor was having a birthday party and he came into the room.
“He came up, we hugged, and he saw a pretty brunette over my shoulder. He said goodbye and that was the last time I ever saw him.”
With an Oscar under her belt, Hollywood was desperate to make the most of her stardust, but Eva didn’t want to leave her second baby, Laurette, to work on North By Northwest.
Hitchcock’s on-set abuse was well known, but to Eva he was the perfect English gent.
She said: “Hitchcock was a high-class guy. He always had a suit on.”
North By Northwest was a box office hit and one of the pinnacles of Eva’s career.
Going out one night with co-star Cary Grant, she saw how he was mobbed.
She said: “I couldn’t have coped with that kind of fame. I wanted a normal life.”
And when she filmed Exodus in 1960 with Paul Newman, she took family on location in Israel and Cyprus.
She met Jeffrey Hayden before she was famous and they married in 1951 — a union that lasted 65 years until his death in 2016.
Eva’s TV roles included playing Superman’s mother in 2006 and Cybill Shepherd’s mum in Eighties hit TV series Moonlighting.
For her 100th birthday all her family gathered for a big party at her home in Los Angeles.
Eva said: “I certainly don’t feel 100 years old.”
Yet her age didn’t slow her down and she led an active life, saying: “I take walks out in the fresh air, like watching baseball — especially the Los Angeles Dodgers.
“I enjoy time with family and friends. A good life.”