Actress Eva Marie Saint, Oscar winner for 'On the Waterfront,' dies at 102

Eva Marie Saint, who starred in Elia Kazan's 1954 film "On the Waterfront" and Alfred Hitchcock's 1959 film "North by Northwest," died on Tuesday, 6 October 2026, at 102 years old, NPR reported. She won an Oscar for her performance in "On the Waterfront," which was her first film role, according to NPR.

In the film, Saint plays Edie, a Catholic schoolgirl in Hoboken, N.J., who wants justice after her longshoreman brother, a dock worker, is murdered amid union corruption, NPR reported. According to NPR, it was her first film job after years of theater and television.

NPR reported that Saint grew up in Albany and Delmar, New York, attended the Actors Studio in New York, performed on Broadway and worked in live television in the late 1940s. She did not appear in a film until she was almost 30, after Kazan suggested she screen test with Marlon Brando.

In 2000, Saint told WHYY's Fresh Air about the screen test. "I don't know what happened, but ... [Brando] came in the living room. We were dancing, we were laughing, I was crying. He was taking my skirt and ... whipping it around, and the sparks flew. And Kazan saw that. And suddenly I was in On the Waterfront," she said.

Five years after playing Edie, Saint played Eve Kendall opposite Cary Grant in Hitchcock's "North by Northwest," NPR reported. According to NPR, Eve Kendall is a femme fatale, a term for a seductive female character. After marrying director Jeffrey Hayden in 1951, she limited her roles to devote more time to her children, NPR reported. She returned to television in the 1970s and won an Emmy in 1990 for the miniseries "People Like Us."