Eva Marie Saint was born July 4, 1924 in Newark, New Jersey to Quaker parents who she credits for inspiring her. "My mother was a little lady, very strong, self-sufficient." That could also be applied to her daughter and the roles she plays on-screen.

Saint attended Bowling Green State University (where she graduated in 1946), planning to be a teacher, but then switched her major to drama. She then attended the famed Actors Studio, and afterwards began appearing on the stage and television during that medium's formative years. In 1953, she won a Drama Critics' Award for The Trip to Bountiful and the following year she landed her first film role - Edie Doyle in On the Waterfront, directed by Actors Studio founder, Elia Kazan.

According to Saint, her audition for the role (the choice had been narrowed down to her and Elizabeth Montgomery) was memorable. "[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.'" Working with Marlon Brando was a challenge, but a positive one, "The way Kazan worked, you were constantly rehearsing, and at one of those rehearsals I dropped a white glove. Most actors would have picked it up and put it in my hand. [Brando] put it on his hand and kept doing the scene. I had to stay there to get the glove back. We showed it to Gadge [Kazan], and when we were up to bat we repeated it. I was in awe of [Brando's] sensitivity. As an actor you must be sensitive, but to be that sensitive is unsettling, because you wonder what he's really thinking." While Edie Doyle was a leading role, the producers decided to enter Saint for Oscar® consideration as a supporting role, thinking it would better her chances of winning an Oscar. It worked.

Fifty years after its release, On the Waterfront continues to inspire young actors, to Saint's delight. "As you get older, you're doing different parts, but the young people, they keep you excited, because they'll see Waterfront, and they'll want to talk about it. Before, older actors would be forgotten, and films had disintegrated. But it's great to be part of the scene, by [young people] seeing the movies, and it's wonderful when they can appreciate On the Waterfront because it is a fine movie, and even though it's black and white, they'll see it. You know, a lot of people don't want to see a black and white film."

The film brought her into the spotlight and she continued acting in film and on early television for a few years before finding herself invited to lunch with Alfred Hitchcock. He was interested in casting her opposite Cary Grant in North by Northwest (1959). "We didn't talk business at all, but by the time the lunch was over, I was Eve Kendall. I was very shy in those days, and I remember sitting in the dining room, which overlooked the Bel Aire golf course, and asking Hitch and his dear wife, Alma, 'Don't you get a lot of balls coming through the window?' To this day, I'm fascinated that he saw me as a sexy spy-lady."

Although Hitchcock had been impressed with Saint's performances in On the Waterfront and A Hatful of Rain (1957), he wanted her career to go in a different direction. "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.'" Cary Grant helped to create a lighter atmosphere as well. "Cary Grant was just as charming off screen. Adorable. Giving. He 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.'"

The atmosphere on a Hitchcock set wasn't the only difference, Saint found. "Well, working with Hitch was very different from working with [Elia] Kazan. Kazan is a method director, and I'm a method actress, and had gone to the Actors Studio. Kazan would whisper into your ear, individually, his ideas for the emotional scenes and so forth. Hitchcock gave me three things, three directions. One, lower your voice. Two, don't use your hands. And three, look directly into Cary Grant's eyes at all times. The last was not difficult at all! It was very strange because-having come from Kazan - it was very strange direction. But the way he did it, the way he said it, I conjured up, in my mind, a kind of sexy, spy lady. And that's what he wanted. And, believe me, that was just, basically, the direction. [...] He had storyboards, but within that you could do what you wanted. When I was climbing Mount Rushmore, he didn't say, 'Take off your heels.' That was one thing he left out of the storyboards. Well, I've been to the Actors Studio; I know you don't climb Mount Rushmore with your shoes on."

Saint got a crash course in what being a movie star really meant from Cary Grant. "When I was with Cary Grant making North by Northwest, we went to see Judy Garland perform, and when we walked into the theater, the place went crazy. I was terrified. I said, 'I don't know how you handle this.' He said, 'All these people saw me, and they're so glad they came tonight.' I guess he meant he was making some contribution to their lives. He still charged them 25 cents an autograph. He said it went to the Actors' Fund; I'm not so sure." The camaraderie was so strong that Saint regretted not being invited by Hitchcock to go on location for one of the film's most memorable scenes. "I remember the crop-dusting scene in North by Northwest. I wasn't in that segment so I was home, feeling a little left out and unhappy I wasn't in Bakersfield. But [Hitchcock] sent a telegram saying it was very hot that day. I thought that was so sweet. So, through the years we would send telegrams." Saint continued her movie career into the 1960s with films like 36 Hours (1965), Exodus (1960), The Sandpiper (1965) and Grand Prix (1966) but good movie roles became harder to find, so she went back to television, where she had started her career. In the past few years, she has made a return to films, co-starring in Because of Winn-Dixie, Don't Come Knocking (both 2005) and the soon-to-be released, Superman Returns (2006) in which she plays Superman's mother. Eva Marie Saint remains firmly rooted in the present, although she regrets the current trend towards violent and overtly sexual films. "I loved Sideways (2004). That was a simple story, not so simple, but a beautiful story. And Vera Drake (2004), if you've seen that. And The Sea Inside (2004)... That was beautiful. I tend to love stories about people and not cop shows and violence, special effects. And some of the things I see, I'm not prudish, I'm not Pollyanna, but I thought North by Northwest was as sexy as you can get and we had all our clothes on. And, you know, the imagination. When I see the real thing, I'm just so... Well, they're not really doing it. They're not allowed to do it on the set, so why do they go that far?" [At the preview of North by Northwest ] "I was sitting next to my husband, and I said, when the train goes in, 'Well, honey, isn't that a little Freudian?' And my husband said, 'You got it, honey!'"

by Lorraine LoBianco

Sources:

Movies.about.com

"Idol Chatter: Eva Marie Saint" by Al Weisel, Premiere Magazine, Sept 2000

Guy Flately Interviews

IMDB.com

"Eva Marie Saint Lauds Old Hollywood Values", by Gloria Goodale, Christian Science Monitor December 01, 2000

"The Stories of a Saint", by Brent Buckalew, www.filmstew.com, February 20, 2005

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