Eva Marie Saint, iconic actress from “La Mort aux trousses”, has died

Hollywood mourns one of its icons. American actress Eva Marie Saint, who left her mark on 1950s cinema with her roles in Elia Kazan's On the Quays and Alfred Hitchcock's Death on the Trail, died on Tuesday at the age of 102.

The Oscar-winning actress, whose career in cinema, television and theater spanned more than seventy years, died “of natural causes, surrounded by her family and loved ones […] at her home in Los Angeles,” her agent said.

Oscar for Best Supporting Actress

Cary Grant's unforgettable partner in Hitchcock's masterpiece was praised by Hollywood from his first appearance on screen in 1954 in Elia Kazan's film. This role earned her the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.

Eva Marie Saint also shines in the theater, on Broadway, Los Angeles, Washington and in small American towns. Passionate since high school, she “regularly needs to get back on the boards”. She admitted that “putting on a play is like being pregnant: a theater role is like a child, it’s yours forever”. Acting for television also remained a pleasure for a long time for the one who started there as a young girl. In 1990, after five nominations, she won her first Emmy Award, for the series People Like Us, on NBC.

Theater rather than teaching

Born on July 4, 1924, near Newark, New Jersey, to Quaker parents who, she says, gave her strength and rigor, Eva Marie Saint was destined for teaching. She began studying literature at Bowling Green University, but graduated with a degree in drama after discovering a passion for theater. Her teacher discourages her. However, she persevered and, while performing small roles in radio and then television plays, she took classes at the Actors Studio in New York, under the direction of Elia Kazan, one of the founders.

The public and critics proved her right since in 1953 she was rewarded with a Drama Critics Award for her performance in The Trip to Bountiful, by Horton Foote, on Broadway. On the big screen, she exploded from her first appearance in On the Quays. “She was just perfect […] Everyone loved her, especially me,” Kazan said.

Two stars in his name

After Death on the Trail opposite Cary Grant and James Mason, she enjoyed success in several cult films, such as The Tree of Life by Edward Dmytryk (1957) with Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor or Exodus by Otto Preminger (1960) with Paul Newman. After Loving by Irvin Kershner (1970), about sexual liberation at the end of the 1960s, the actress mainly made TV films.

Our Cinema file

We will find her later at age 82, in Superman Returns, and, at age 90, in A Winter's Love. She lived near Los Angeles, not far from the two stars in her name, for cinema and television, affixed to the Hollywood Walk of Fame.