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| Birth Name(s) : Eva Marie Saint |
Date of Birth: N/A |
| Status:
Single
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Partner:
Jeffrey Hayden 1951-present |
| Profession:
N/A |
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Full Eva Marie Saint Biography
Saint was born in Newark, New Jersey but attended Bethlehem Central High School in Delmar, NY, graduating in 1942. Eva was inducted into the high school's hall of fame in 2006. She studied acting at Bowling Green State University, while a member of Delta Gamma Sorority. There is also a theatre on Bowling Green campus named after her. She was also an active member in the theater honorary fraternity, Theta Alpha Phi.
In the late '40s, she began doing extensive work in radio and television before winning the Drama Critics Award for her Broadway stage role in the Horton Foote play The Trip to Bountiful (1953), in which she co-starred with such formidable actors as Lillian Gish and Jo Van Fleet. In 1955, she was nominated for her first Emmy for "Best Actress In A Single Performance" on The Philco Television Playhouse for the playing the young mistress of middle-aged E. G. Marshall in Middle of the Night by Paddy Chayevsky. She won another Emmy nomination for the 1955 television musical version of the Thornton Wilder classic play Our Town with co-stars Paul Newman (in his only musical role) and Frank Sinatra. Her success and acclaim were of such a high level that the young Saint earned the nickname "the Helen Hayes of television."
Saint's first feature motion picture role was in On the Waterfront (1954), directed by Elia Kazan and starring Marlon Brando — a smart, sympathetic, and emotionally-charged role for which she won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Her performance as Edie Doyle (whose brother Joey's death sets the film's drama in motion) which she won over such leading contenders as Grace Kelly, Janice Rule, and Elizabeth Montgomery, also earned her a British Academy of Film and Television Award for "Most Promising Newcomer." In his New York Times review, film critic Bosley Crowther wrote:
In a 2000 interview in Premiere magazine, Saint recalled making the hugely influential film:“ 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! came in and started teasing me. He put me off-balance. And I remained off-balance for the whole shoot.”
The watershed success of the film launched Saint into many of the best known films of her early screen career. They include starring with Don Murray in the powerful and pioneering drug-addiction drama, A Hatful of Rain (1957), for which she won the "Best Foreign Actress" from the British Academy of Film and Television, and the lavish Civil War epic Raintree County, opposite Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift.
At the time of the film's production, much publicity was garnered by Hitchcock's decision to cut Saint's waist-length blonde hair for the very first time in her career. Hitchcock explained at the time, "Short hair gives Eva a more exotic look, in keeping with her role of the glamorous woman of my story. I wanted her dressed like a kept woman – smart, simple, subtle and quiet. In other words, anything but the bangles and beads type." The director also worked with Saint to make her voice lower and huskier and even personally chose costumes for her during a shopping trip to Bergdorf Goodman in New York City. The change in Saint's screen persona, coupled with her adroit performance as a seductive woman of mystery who keeps Cary Grant (and the audience) off-balance, was widely heralded. In his New York Times review of August 7, 1959. critic Bosley Crowther wrote, "In casting Eva Marie Saint as romantic vis-a-vis, Mr. Hitchcock has plumbed some talents not shown by the actress heretofore. Although she is seemingly a hard, designing type, she also emerges both the sweet heroine and a glamorous charmer." In 2000, recalling her experience making the picture with Cary Grant and Hitchcock, Saint said, " 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." 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."
She has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for motion pictures at 6624 Hollywood Blvd., and one for television at 6730 Hollywood Blvd.
Features:
- On the Waterfront (1954)
- That Certain Feeling (1956)
- A Hatful of Rain (1957)
- Raintree County (1957)
- North by Northwest (1959)
- Exodus (1960)
- All Fall Down (1962)
- 36 Hours (1965)
- The Sandpiper (1965)
- The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming (1966)
- Grand Prix (1966)
- The Stalking Moon (1968)
- Loving (1970)
- Cancel My Reservation (1972)
- Nothing in Common (1986)
- Mariette in Ecstasy (1996)
- Time to Say Goodbye? (1997)
- I Dreamed of Africa (2000)
- Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There (2003) (documentary)
- Because of Winn-Dixie (2005)
- Don't Come Knocking (2005)
- Superman Returns (2006) |
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