The oldest surviving Oscar winner is turning 100 this year! Classy, smart and with a warmth that belies her cool blonde beauty, Eva Marie Saint made a name for herself on stage, radio, television and film, earning numerous accolades over a nearly eight-decade career, and appearing alongside some of Hollywood’s most acclaimed stars.
Saint was born on July 4, 1924, in New Jersey, and raised in New York, before becoming an NBC page. After steady work on radio and TV, Saint won an Outer Critics Circle Award for her role in the 1953 play “The Trip to Bountiful.”
The following year, Saint made her movie debut opposite Marlon Brando in Elia Kazan‘s “On the Waterfront,” which garnered her the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, and launched an impressive film career. Over the next two decades, she co-starred alongside Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, Cary Grant, Paul Newman, Warren Beatty, Angela Lansbury and James Garner in every genre from historical epics (“Raintree County”) to action adventure (“North By Northwest“) to dramas (“A Hatful of Rain”) to thrillers (“36 Hours”) to comedies (“The Russians Are Coming, the Russians are Coming”).
Saint’s television career is just as impressive, with five Emmy nominations, including a 1990 win for Best Miniseries Supporting Actress for “People Like Us.” Her stage career includes more than a dozen productions over 70 years. As an older actress, she has played mother to many well-loved characters and actors over the past several years, on TV and film, including Cybill’s Shepherd‘s mother on “Moonlighting” (1986-1988), Roz’s mother on “Frasier” (1999), Tom Hanks‘ mother in “Nothing in Common” (1986) and Clark Kent’s adoptive mother Martha Kent in “Superman Returns” (2006).
In real life, Saint is mother to two children. She married television director and producer Jeffrey Hayden in 1951, and they remained married until his death at the age of 90 in 2016. Their first child was born two days after she won her Oscar; her acceptance speech began with, “I may have the baby right here!
“To celebrate the incredible career of one of the last surviving stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age, take a tour of our photo gallery above ranking Saint’s 10 best movie performances.
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