Eva Marie Saint, actress who starred in classics North by Northwest and On the Waterfront, is dead at 102

DAILYMAIL.COM • 12h ago

By BRIAN MARKS, US ASSISTANT SHOWBUSINESS EDITOR 23:26 06 Oct 2026, updated 00:26 07 Oct 2026

Eva Marie Saint, the Oscar-winning actress who starred in classic films including North by Northwest and On the Waterfront, has died at 102.

Saint’s spokesperson revealed she had died on Tuesday of natural causes, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Saint won an Academy Award for her work in 1954’s On the Waterfront, which paired her with screen icon Marlon Brando.

Saint was also the recipient in her long career of a Primetime Emmy Award, and she was nominated for a Golden Globe and two BAFTA Awards.

In addition to working with Brando and Cary Grant, who costarred with her in Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller North by Northwest, Saint worked with a bevy of legendary leading men, including Paul Newman, Gregory Peck, James Garner and Bob Hope.

Although Saint continued to work into the 2010s, she’s best remembered for her work in the 1950s, in particular her work in On the Waterfront with director Elia Kazan and her collaboration with Alfred Hitchcock in North by Northwest.

She made her feature film debut in the former movie, which starred Brando as Terry Malloy, a former boxer who became a longshoreman after losing a match at the insistence of a local mob boss.

After Malloy witnesses the same mobster’s goons murder a dock worker to prevent him from testifying in a corruption investigation, he is conflicted about whether he should speak up or stay quiet to ensure he can continue working.

Saint starred as Edie, the sister of the murdered dock worker who tries to convince Terry to testify to the commission.

For her first film role, Saint won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, and she was nominated for a British Academy of Film and Television Arts Award for Most Promising Newcomer.

Saint’s instant success in Hollywood led to more leading roles, as well as paydays far larger than the $7,500 she was paid for On the Waterfront.

The actress proved that she had the chops for comedy when she followed On the Waterfront with That Certain Feeling (1956), which paired her with funnyman Bob Hope.

She followed it up in 1957 with another left turn, the Civil War drama Raintree County, which also starred lifelong friends Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift.

Saint also pushed the limits of what could be depicted on screen at the height of Hollywood censorship under the Production Code with the 1957 addiction drama A Hatful of Rain, which earned her another BAFTA nomination, this time for Best Foreign Actress.

Saint’s other masterpiece came at the end of the ’50s, when Alfred Hitchcock chose her as his next glamorous blonde to appear with Cary Grant in the comic spy thriller North by Northwest.

The film, a more ambitious return to Hitchcock’s early-career thrillers about a ‘wrong man’ who is swept up into espionage against his will, starred Grant as an ad executive who is mistaken for a spy by a dangerous group of international criminals.

Saint played a nuanced role as the apparent femme fatale and arm candy of the villain (played by James Mason), but she’s later revealed to be a double agent working behind the scenes for a US intelligence agency.

The breezy film was a hit with critics and audiences alike, becoming one of the best-regarded movies Saint, Grant and Hitchcock ever made.

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