Eva Marie Saint, Oscar and Emmy-Winning Actress, Dead at 102

Eva Marie Saint, an Oscar and Emmy Award winning actress whose career in films, television, stage and radio spanned more than 70 years died today October 6, 2026 of natural causes surrounded by family and loved ones, at the age of 102, at her home in Los Angeles. She began her distinguished film career opposite Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront (1954), for which she was honored with an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She went on to star in several other memorable movies, including North by Northwest (1959), A Hatful of Rain (1957), That Certain Feeling (1956), Raintree County (1957), Exodus (1960), All Fall Down (1962), 36 Hours (1964), The Sandpiper (1965), The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming (1966), Grand Prix (1966), The Stalking Moon (1968), Loving (1970), Nothing in Common (1986) and I Dreamed of Africa (2000). Her recent films include Because of Winn-Dixie (2005), Don't Come Knocking (2005), Superman Returns (2006) and Winter's Tale (2014) starring Colin Farrell.

The names of her leading men read like a galaxy: Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, Cary Grant, Henry Fonda, Paul Newman, Gregory Peck, Richard Burton, Warren Beatty, James Garner, Jason Robards, George C. Scott, Burt Lancaster and Tom Hanks, with whom she co-starred in Nothing in Common.

The actress grew up in Albany and Delmar, New York and attended Bowling Green State University in Ohio, planning to become a schoolteacher. Trying out for a school play at the suggestion of the university's drama professor, she won the leading role and changed the direction of her life. The university has awarded her with an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree and renamed its main campus theatre The Eva Marie Saint Theatre. In 2018, she received the Bowling Green State University Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of her distinguished career in the film, television and theatre industries.

Upon graduation from Bowling Green, she went to New York City and studied at The American Theatre Wing and with Lee Strasberg at The Actors Studio. Launching her career during the golden age of live television, Saint was Emmy-nominated for several memorable TV presentations and moved to Broadway in The Trip to Bountiful (1953), receiving the Drama Critics Award and Outer-Circle Critics Award for her performance. Director Elia Kazan saw her in the play and cast her in On the Waterfront.

Saint spent the early years of her career living in New York where she worked in radio, television and theatre. She moved to Los Angeles in 1956 where she lived until her death.

In television, Ms. Saint's first Emmy nomination was for Paddy Chayefsky's Middle of the Night for The Philco Television Playhouse (1954). In 1955, she sang the role of Emily in the live TV musical adaptation of Thornton Wilder's Our Town with Frank Sinatra and Paul Newman, winning another Emmy nomination. Her third Emmy nod came for the Hallmark Hall Of Fame presentation of Taxi!! (1978), and a fourth nomination came for the mini-series How the West Was Won (1977). In 1990, on her fifth Emmy nomination, she won the coveted award for the mini-series People Like Us (1990).

Her many other TV appearances include playing Cybill Shepherd's mother on the Moonlighting series, When Hell Was In Session (1979), Best Little Girl In The World (1981), Fatal Vision (1984), A Year in the Life (1986), The Last Days Of Patton (1986), Voyage of Terror: The Achille Lauro Affair (1990), My Antonia (1995), After Jimmy (1996), the Titanic mini-series (1996), Time To Say Goodbye? (1997) and Open House (2003). She also starred in four memorable holiday specials, A Christmas to Remember (1978), Breaking Home Ties (1987), I'll Be Home for Christmas (1988) and Papa's Angels (2000). She also was a recurring character in the animated series The Legend of Korra (2012). The iconic actress was a presenter at the 81st Annual Academy Awards in 2009 and the 90th Academy Awards in 2018, among many other occasions.

Saint acted in three short comedy audio plays written and directed by Emmy-nominated and Drama Desk Award winner Eugene Pack for The Pack Podcast in the style of classic radio plays including 'Jenny and Mrs. Brown' with Sarah Jessica Parker and 'The Christmas Letter' with Matthew Broderick and Annette Bening in 2021 and 'The Bus Ride' with Marisa Tomei in 2022. She also acted in Edith Wharton's Xingu for Radio Play Revival, directed by Patti LuPone, a podcast celebrating the golden age of radio plays which aired in 2022.

In addition to The Trip to Bountiful, she starred on the New York stage in The Lincoln Mask and Duet for One, and on major stages across America. She also co-starred with Henry Fonda in First Monday In October in Chicago and Los Angeles, and starred in Summer and Smoke and Desire Under The Elms at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Other plays she starred in include The Rainmaker, Candida, Winesburg, Ohio; The Fatal Weakness, and The Country Girl, for which she received the L.A. Dramalogue Award. She also co-starred in a production of Death of a Salesman with Judd Hirsch. Saint and her late husband, director Jeffrey Hayden, produced a critically acclaimed production of August Wilson's Fences (directed by Hayden) at the Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles in Summer 2006. The couple regularly performed A.R. Gurney's Love Letters as well as an evening of Willa Cather's On The Divide in theatres around the country.

Saint and Hayden also produced the PBS television documentaries Primary Colors: The Story of Corita (1991), which she narrated, and Children in America's Schools with Bill Moyers (1996) for which they won an Emmy.

Among her many charitable works, Saint had been a longtime supporter of the Motion Picture and Television Fund and the Epilepsy Foundation of Los Angeles. She was an early proponent of making cars cell-phone-free and created and distributed her own bumper sticker: Get Off The Phone Or Get Off The Road. In addition, she served on the Nicholl Screenwriting Fellowship Committee of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.

Saint had been married to Jeffrey Hayden for 65 years. He died in December 2016. Survivors include her two children, Darrell and Laurette, four grandchildren, Eli, Tyler, Molly, and Stella and two great grandchildren, Arlo and Finley.