American actress Eva Marie Saint, who became one of the most striking figures in classical Hollywood and worked with directors such as Alfred Hitchcock, died Tuesday at the age of 102 in Los Angeles.
© Amy Sussman/Getty Image
07/10/2026
by
Lusa
Eva Marie Saint
A american actress Eva Marie Saint, who challenged the archetype of the protagonist of Alfred Hitchcock's films and became icon of the Golden Age of Hollywood, died Tuesday at the age of 102, reported to the local press.
Saint died of natural causes in his home in Los Angeles, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Born July 4, 1924 in New Jersey, Saint grew up in New York and graduated from Bowling Green State University in Ohio.
His professional career began on television in 1946 and his film debut took place in 1954 with the Union of Thieves (On the Waterfront), a film directed by Elia Kazan and starring Marlon Brando, who earned him the Academy Award for Best Actress.
Saint received the statuette from Frank Sinatra two days before giving birth to the first of his two children. “It may end up having the baby right here!”, he joked during his thank-you speech.
Later, Saint broke the pattern of innocent blondes in Hitchcock's filmography by playing Eve Kendall, a seductive secret agent, in the film "North by Northwest".
Her work in this film consecrated her as one of the most memorable “hitchcockian blondes” in film history.
She also worked alongside Hollywood legends, such as Paul Newman in Exodus (1960) and Gregory Peck in The Moon of the Desperate (The Stalking Moon, 1969). Exploited the comedy with The Russian Are Coming and the historical dramas in Raintree County.
Saint married producer and television director Jeffrey Hayden in 1951, with whom he had two children and remained married until his death in 2016.
The actress walked away from the spotlight to raise her family, but maintained an intermittent career in film and television.
He stated that he had no interest in leading stardom, which is why he refused projects that could have kept his career at its peak.
His television performance remained more constant with appearances in series such as Moonlighting (1985), in which he played a recurring role as the mother of Cybill Shepherd, and also won an Emmy Award for People Like Us (1990).
Among his last film appearances, Superman Returns (2006), in which he played the adopted mother of Clark Kent, and Mariette in Ecstasy (2019).
He also lent his voice to the animated series The Legend of Korra (2012) and participated in the podcasts Radio Play Revival (2022) and The Pack Podcast (2020).
Eva Marie Saint, 1950 © Getty