Alfred Hitchcock Star Eva Marie Saint Dead at 102

Eva Marie Saint, the oldest living Academy Award winner, has died. Saint's acting career spanned seven decades, and over its course she worked with directors like Elia Kazan, Alfred Hitchcock, and John Frankenheimer. Saint died at age 102 at her home in Los Angeles.

Saint was born in Newark, New Jersey on July 4, 1924. She studied acting at Bowling Green University, where a theater is now named after her, and graduated in 1946. She began her career as a page at NBC during the early days of television, and made her first screen appearance on the NBC program Campus Hoopla. She was nominated for two Emmy Awards during the 1950s for her performances in TV adaptations of Middle of the Night and Our Town. During this time, she also began acting on Broadway.

Saint made her big-screen debut in the classic crime drama On the Waterfront, playing Edie Doyle, a young woman whose brother's death sets the events of the film in motion. Despite starring alongside established stars Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, and Rod Steiger, Saint's star shone bright, and she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, one of eight Oscars the film took home. After subsequently starring in several other films, she was selected by Alfred Hitchcock to star alongside Cary Grant in his suspense classic North by Northwest. Despite the film's success, however, Saint continued to be very selective about her roles to spend more time with her growing family. However, she continued to appear in hit movies throughout the 1960s, including the historical drama Exodus, the sports movie Grand Prix, and the all-star comedy The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming.

Dissatisfied with the roles she was offered in the 1970s, Saint turned to TV, and starred in a litany of TV movies and miniseries, earning Emmy nominations for the miniseries How the West Was Won and the Martin Sheen TV movie Taxi!!! In the 1980s, she starred as Cybill Shepherd's mother on several episodes of the series Moonlighting, guest-starred on Frasier as Roz Doyle's mother, and voiced the aged Katara on The Legend of Korra. She eventually returned to the big screen as a living link to Hollywood's past, with roles in Nothing in Common, I Dreamed of Africa, and Superman Returns, starring as Martha Kent in the latter. She gave her final on-screen performance in the 2014 fantasy romance Winter's Tale.

Saint married TV director and producer Jeffrey Hayden in 1951, and had two children. They were married for 65 years until Hayden's death from cancer in 2016 at 90. Saint is survived by her two children and four grandchildren. Collider extends our sympathies to Saint's family, friends, and fans.