Eva Marie Saint

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Eva Marie Saint

Saint in North by Northwest, 1959
Born July 4, 1924 (age 82)
Newark, New Jersey, USA
Other name(s) Eve Marie Saint
Notable roles Eve Kendall
On the Waterfront
Academy
 Awards		 On the Waterfront, 1954
Emmy
 Awards		 People Like Us, 1990
Spouse(s) Jeffrey Hayden 1951-present

Eva Marie Saint (born July 4, 1924) is an Academy Award-winning American actress. The blonde, graceful, intelligent and luminous leading lady has starred on Broadway, in films and on television beginning in the 1950s.

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

Saint was born in Newark, New Jersey but attended Bethlehem Central High School in Delmar, NY, graduating in 1942. Eva 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 also a theatre on Bowling Green campus named after her.

[edit] Early television career

In the late '40s, 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 the 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 role) 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."

[edit] Film debut

Saint's first feature motion picture role was in On the Waterfront (1954) directed by Elia Kazan with Marlon Brando, in a smart, sympathetic, and emotionally-charged role for which she won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Her performance in the role, which she won the role over such leading contenders as Grace Kelly, Janice Rule, and Elizabeth Montgomery, also earned her a British Academy of Film and Television Award for "Most Promising Newcomer." In film critic Bosley Crowther's New York Times review of the film on July 30, 1954, he 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 geniume romance."

In a 2000 interview in Premiere magazine, she recalled of making the watershed, hugely influential film, "[Elia] Kazan put me in a room with Marlon Brando. He said, 'Brando is the boyfriend of your sister. You're a Catholic girl and not used to being with a young man. Don't let him in the door under any circumstances.' I don't know what he told Marlon; you'll have to ask him – good luck! [Brando] came in and started teasing me. He put me off-balance. And I remained off-balance for the whole shoot." 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 powerful and pioneering drug addiction drama, A Hatful of Rain (1957) for which she won the "Best Foreign Actress" from the British Academy of Film and Television,, and the lavish Civil War epic Raintree County opposite Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift,

[edit] "Hitchcock blonde"

Legendary director Alfred Hitchcock surprised many by choosing the stately and serious 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 brilliant and immensely entertaining film updated and expanded upon the director's early "wrong man" spy adventures of the '30s and '50s including The 39 Steps, Young and Innocent, Foreign Correspondent,and Saboteur. North by Northwest not only became a massive box-office hit but also a major influence on other 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 very 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. 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."

[edit] Mid-career

Although North by Northwest might have propelled her to the very top ranks of stardom, she elected to limit her film work in order to spend time with her husband since 1951, director Jeffrey Hayden, and their two children. Nevertheless, in the 'Sixties, Saint continued to distinguish herself in both high-profile and more offbeat motion pictures, including co-starring again with Paul Newman in the problematic drama about the founding of the state of Israel Exodus (1960) directed by the controversial 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 also seen with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in the highly-publicized melodrama The Sandpiper for Vincente Minnelli and with James Garner in a top-notch but little seen thriller, 36 Hours directed by George Seaton. She was among the all-star casts 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 John Frankenheimer. Although she was announced as the leading lady opposite Steve McQueen in director Norman Jewison's ultra-stylish romantic caper film of 1968 The Thomas Crown Affair, the meteoric rise of newcomer Faye Dunaway, who was cast instead, cost Saint a rare glamorous and sexy role.

In 1970, she received some of the best reviews of her film career for Loving, in which she co-starred as the wife of George Segal in a critically-acclaimed but underseen film drama about a commercial artist's relationship with his wife and the other women in his life. 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 has appeared in a number of made-for-TV movies, played the mother of Cybill Shepherd on the hit television series Moonlighting, winning an Emmy nomination for the 1977 miniseries How The West Was Won, a 1978 Emmy nomination for Taxi! and an Emmy in 1990 for the mini-series People Like Us.

[edit] Later career

In 2000, she co-starred with Kim Basinger in the motion picture I Dreamed of Africa and, in 2005, appeared with Jessica Lange for director Wim Wenders in Don't Come Knocking written by Sam Shepard and in the heart-tugging family film Because of Winn-Dixie. In 2006, Saint once again became a household name by playing Martha Kent, the adoptive mother of Superman, in Superman Returns.

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

[edit] Awards

Preceded by:
Donna Reed
From Here to Eternity		 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
1954
On the Waterfront		 Succeeded by:
Jo Van Fleet
East of Eden
Preceded by:
Colleen Dewhurst
Those She Left Behind		 Emmy Award Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie
1990
People Like Us		 Succeeded by:
Ruby Dee
Decoration Day


[edit] Filmography


[edit] Television work

[edit] External links

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