Oscar-winning actress Eva Marie Saint dies aged 102
The American actress became world-famous with On the Waterfront and North by Northwest.
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Eva Marie Saint died on Tuesday at the age of 102 at her home in Los Angeles. Her publicist announced the news on behalf of the family; according to the statement, she died of natural causes.
Saint made her film debut in 1954 in Elia Kazan’s On the Waterfront, alongside Marlon Brando. For her role as Edie Doyle, she received the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. This made her one of the rare actors to win an Academy Award for their very first film appearance.
A year later, her Oscar acceptance attracted extra attention because Saint was pregnant. According to earlier reports, she briefly mentioned this herself in her acceptance speech. Her son was born two days after the ceremony.
Her greatest international fame came with 1959’s North by Northwest. In Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller, Saint played Eve Kendall opposite Cary Grant. The film became a classic and is regarded as one of the best-known productions of Hitchcock’s career.
Throughout her career, Saint regularly chose to be selective. According to interviews and retrospectives, she turned down offers when they could not be combined with her family life. She was married for 65 years to television and theatre director Jeffrey Hayden, who died in 2016; they had two children together.
From the 1970s onwards, Saint worked extensively in television. She appeared, among other productions, in the series Moonlighting and won an Emmy in 1990 for the miniseries People Like Us. She remained active into old age and appeared in films including Because of Winn-Dixie, Superman Returns and Winter’s Tale.
Saint’s career therefore spanned more than seven decades, from live television and the classic studio system to later film and audio productions. Her death was reported within hours by several international news organisations. The precise medical circumstances surrounding her death have not been disclosed; the statement that she died of natural causes came from her publicist.
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The key facts are confirmed by Associated Press, CBS News and RTVE. Only the cause of death is based exclusively on the statement from her publicist and is therefore attributed as such in the article.
- confirmed Eva Marie Saint died on 6 October 2026 at the age of 102 in Los Angeles. — Reported by AP, CBS News and RTVE. source
- confirmed Saint’s publicist said that she died of natural causes. — CBS News and RTVE attribute this to her publicist or spokesperson. source
- confirmed Saint won an Oscar for her film debut in On the Waterfront. — This is confirmed by AP, CBS News and RTVE. source
- confirmed Saint played Eve Kendall in North by Northwest opposite Cary Grant. — AP, CBS News and RTVE mention the role and her collaboration with Hitchcock and Grant. source
- confirmed Saint was married to Jeffrey Hayden for 65 years, until his death in 2016. — AP and CBS News both mention the length of the marriage and the year of his death. source
- confirmed Saint won an Emmy in 1990 for People Like Us. — This career information appears in AP’s obituary. source
Editor's note
The death, age, best-known film roles, Oscar and broad outline of her career have been confirmed by multiple public sources. The report of a natural death comes from her publicist; independent medical details are unavailable.Sources
More on this in Dutch media
- Het Parool — „eva marie saint”
- Trouw — „eva marie saint”
- NRC — „eva marie saint”