Oscar Profile #181: Eva Marie Saint

Born July 4, 1924 in Newark, New Jersey, Eva Marie Saint’s acting career began in the early days of television. An NBC page, she first appeared on live TV programs in 1946 which have been preserved on kinescope in the Library of Congress.

Cast as the only female in the original 1947 Broadway production of Mister Roberts with Henry Fonda, director Joshua Logan replaced her with the more experienced Jocelyn Brando just before the show’s opening. Numerous TV productions later, she was cast opposite Jocelyn’s brother Marlon in Elia Kazan’s landmark 1954 film, On the Waterfront. The result was Oscars for both of them.

Married to director Jeffrey Hayden since 1951, she was nine months pregnant when she won her Oscar in 1955, quipping that she might have the baby right there. She gave birth to her son two days later. She had a second child, a daughter, three years later.

More concerned with raising her family than having the major career that was predicted for her, she made only four more films during the 1950s: Panama and Frank’s That Certain Feeling opposite Bob Hope; Fred Zinnemann’s A Hatful of Rain for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe opposite Don Murray, Tony Franciosa and Lloyd Nolan; Edward Dmytyryk’s Raintree County opposite Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift and Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest opposite Cary Grant and James Mason, far and away her most popular film. Her 1960s output was limited to seven films: Otto Preminger’s Exodus opposite Paul Newman; John Frankenheimer’s All Fall Down opposite Warren Beatty; George Seaton’s 36 Hours opposite James Garner; Vincente Minnelli’s The Sandpiper in support of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton; Norman Jewison’s The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming opposite Carl Reiner; Frankenheimer’s Grand Prix again opposite Garner and Robert Mulligan’s The Stalking Moon opposite Gregory Peck.

Saint received excellent notices for her 1970 film, Irvin Kershner’s Loving opposite George Segal but after the flop of Paul Bogart’s Cancel My Reservation opposite Bob Hope in 1972 she did not make another film until 1986’s Nothing in Common with Tom Hanks and Jackie Gleason, directed by Garry Marshall. She remained in the public eye during the interim in numerous TV roles.

Saint won an Emmy for the 1990 mini-series, People Like Us, but did not make another big screen film until 2000 when she played Kim Basinger’s mother in Hugh Hudson’s mega-flop, I Dreamed of Africa. Since then she’s made made notable appearances in such films as Wayne Wang’s Beacuase of Winn Dixie; Wim Wneders’ Don’t Come Knocking; Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns and Akiva Goldsman’s Winter’s Tale released on Valentine’s Day, 2014.

Eva Marie Saint is incredibly spry and witty in her occasional public appearances as well as her films, belying the fact that she turns 90 this year.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

ON THE WATERFRONT (1954), directed by Elia Kazan

Eva Marie Saint was a well-known TV performer when she was given the role of a lifetime, that of the tenement girl who falls in love with the boy responsible for her brother’s death. The role opposite Marlon Brando was sought after by every young actress in Hollywood. In the end it was between Elizabeth Montgomery and Saint with director Kazan choosing Saint because Montgomery’s finishing school look didn’t quite fit with his idea of the character. Featuring legendary performances by Brando; Karl Malden; Lee J. Cobb; Rod Steiger and Saint, all of whom were nominated for Oscars, she and Brando were among the recipients of the film’s eight Oscars out of twelve nominations.

NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959), directed by Alfred Hitchcock

Hitchcock chose Saint over a myriad of Hollywood actresses for the female lead opposite Cary Grant and James Mason in one of his most enigmatic thrillers. The actress proved to be just as adept at playing a glamorous, romantic lead as she was at bringing her usually drab characters to life. Hitchcock tried to get her to promise not to go back to those drab dramas, but she politely refused, saying she loved those drab dramas.

Among the film’s most unforgettable scenes are those involving Saint and Grant on trains and of course, the climactic scene in which they trek across the faces of Mount Rushmore.

EXODUS (1960), directed by Otto Preminger

Preminger’s film of Leon Uris’ mammoth best-seller about a boat-load of Jewish immigrants stranded on Cyprus on their way to Israel was heavy going. Only Sal Mineo’s compelling Oscar nominated performance as an Auschwitz survivor; Sam Leavitt’s gorgeous Oscar nominated cinematography and Ernest Gold’s magnificent Oscar winning score really distinguish it.

Paul Newman; Saint; Ralph Richardson and others do their best but the long, long production defeats them. Still, Saint tells one of her most charming career anecdotes about the making of the film. Preminger, unimpressed with Newman’s love-making skills took it upon himself to show Newman how to kiss her. To keep Newman from being embarrassed she winked at him all through Preminger’s demonstration. Both actors thought it was hilarious.

ALL FALL DOWN (1962), directed by John Frankenheimer

To be sure, the 37 year-old actress was playing 24 year-old Warren Beatty’s “older” lover, but they made an awkward couple especially considering that Beatty’s mother was played by Angela Lansbury, who was one year younger than Saint.
Beatty, who had just come off the back-to-back successes of Splendor in the Grass and The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone was the hot star of the moment, but the film is best remembered for its casting of the film’s other players. It reunited Saint with one of her On the Waterfront co-stars, Karl Malden who played Beatty’s father and who would play Saint’s husband twenty-three years later in TV’s Fatal Vision. It gave Lansbury the springboard for her casting of an even nastier mother for Frankenheimer in his next film, The Manchurian Candidate and it provided Brandon de Wilde with a role he would repeat note for note in the following year’s Hud.

SUPERMAN RETURNS (2006), directed by Bryan Singer

Saint was 81 when she was played the role of Martha Kent, the adoptive mother of Clark Kent AKA Superman, played this time around by Brandon Routh. She doesn’t have much to do, but she is reunited with fellow On the Waterfront Oscar winner Marlon Brando – sort of.

Brando died two years earlier, but it didn’t stop the producers from using his computer generated image. It was taken from archive footage of his role as Superman’s real father, Jor-El, in the 1978 Superman film that ignited the career of Christopher Reeve.