Eva Marie Saint Is Still Glamorous At 97

Mar 03, 2022 by apost team

Eva Marie Saint is an American actress who has performed on film, television and stage. She is the oldest living recipient of the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, and although she retired in 2018, her Hollywood legacy lives on. Saint is best known for Elia Kazan’s “On the Waterfront,” in which she starred opposite Marlon Brando. The movie was her film debut and is still considered to be one of the greatest and most influential films ever made.

Saint was born July 4, 1924, in Newark, New Jersey but was raised in New York. After graduating from Bethlehem Central High School in 1942, the star attended Bowling Green State University, where she studied acting. In fact, a theater on the school’s campus is named in Saint’s honor. 

The actress began her career on television, and her first job in the entertainment industry was working as an NBC page. She appeared on the series “Campus Hoopla” from 1946 to 1947. By the late 1940s, she was making a living for herself entirely on television. In 1955, Saint was nominated for her first Emmy Award for her performance on “The Philco Television Playhouse.” That same year, she was nominated for another Emmy for appearing in the televised version of the musical “Our Town.”

In 1954, Saint made her film debut in “On the Waterfront” and was awarded the Oscar in 1955 for Best Supporting Actress. The movie was a critical and commercial success that launched Saint into stardom and kickstarted her film career. At the time, she received only $7,500 for her performance. 

As of March 2022, Saint is 97 years old. Keep reading to learn more about this legendary actress and to see what she has been up to recently.

After Olivia de Havilland passed, Eva Marie Saint became the oldest living recipient of the Academy Award for Best Actress. She spoke about her win with the Santa Barbara Independent in 2010, saying:

“First off, there was this ‘feeling’ between the West and the East. The West, out in Los Angeles, felt the movies made in New York were not as good as theirs, and vice versa … Anyway, we went, to be good sports, never thinking that it would win so many awards. At the time the West was much more powerful because of the money they spent on advertising. It was a New York movie. It was a black-and-white New York movie.”

Saint added:

“Anyway, during the ceremony, someone from the movie won, then another person, then another person. Jeff turned to me and said, ‘Honey, my God, if your name is called, you’ve got to count 10 seconds before you stand up because you can’t run up there this pregnant.’ If you ever see footage of me – when they announce my name – you can see me pause and wait a moment. (Jeff had his thumb on my thigh; I couldn’t get up.) So I slowly walked up and said something like, ‘I’m so excited I might have the baby right here.’”

Saint feels that the award show has changed with time. “Well, that was a lot for someone to say in those days. Most people just said thank you and walked off the stage (which I kind of loved.) It’s gotten a little out of hand these days, where people have to be funny and go on and on and on. You are being awarded for something you did, what you achieved, not for you or your personality,” she said.

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Being a mother is just as important of a role to Saint as any character she could play. She said in 2010:

“I want to continue working, but my family always comes first. And that’s how I’ve always felt. So when I did things like ‘Exodus,’ which was three months in Europe, I would bring the whole family. When I was talking to Otto Preminger about whether I would do it, I said, ‘I have a two-year-old and five-year-old, and I can’t leave them at home. I would like my husband to come, so he can help me with them, and I would like my mother and father to come and help as well.’ He said, ‘Well, I guess you have your own Exodus, don’t you?’ But he agreed to all of it.”

Working in Hollywood for over 75 years meant that Saint saw the types of roles offered to her change. She shared, “Recently, I saw something that Angela Lansbury said… She said that as you get older and older, it gets harder to find roles. And people tend to write older people as handicapped or neurotic; they just don’t write for older people. She said she wouldn’t do those roles. ‘Other actresses will do those roles,’ she said, ‘and they’ll do them very well. But I chose not to do those roles.’”

Saint continued, “When I saw her recently I quoted her verbatim. She said, ‘How did you do that?’ I replied that I felt the exact same way. I don’t mean to sound cranky, but writers are compounding the bad writing out there these days. They don’t know about Tennessee Williams or Eugene O’Neill… But I’m not frustrated, because I keep working: I’m doing ‘Love Letters’ soon. And I have my family.”

Are you a fan of Eva Marie Saint? What is your favorite film of hers? Let us know, and be sure to pass this along to your friends and family.