An ethereally beautiful blonde leading lady from the stage, Eva Marie Saint made a stunning feature debut as Marlon Brando's sensitive girlfriend in "On the Waterfront" (1954) and earned a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her efforts. Few of Saint's subsequent vehicles have been worthy of her talents. She was well-served by the gripping drug-addiction drama, "A Hatful of Rain" (1957) and her cool intelligence made for a very suitable Hitchcock heroine opposite Cary Grant in "North by Northwest" (1959). After a fourteen year absence, Saint returned to features as Tom Hanks' mother in "Nothing in Common" (1986). Nine years later, she was in the cast of the as-yet unreleased film "Mariette in Ecstasy".
Since the 1940s, Saint has been a constant presence on the small screen. She made numerous appearances in many of the live dramas of the so-called "Golden Age of Television"; her best-remembered from that period is undoubtedly as Emily Webb in "Our Town" (NBC, 1955). Saint was largely inactive in the 60s and early 70s. She was cast opposite James Arness in "The Macahans" (ABC, 1976) but her character was killed in the first episode of the subsequent series "How the West Was Won". She made memorable appearances in a number of TV-movies, including as Martin Sheen's passenger in the two-hander "Taxi" (NBC, 1978), as Melissa Gilbert's strict mother in "Splendor in the Grass" (NBC, 1981), as the mother of a murder victim in "Fatal Vision" (NBC, 1984), the wife of George C Scott's general in "The Last Days of Patton" (CBS, 1986) and as Neil Patrick Harris' grandmother in "My Antonia" (USA, 1995). Saint also portrayed Cybill Shepherd's mother in the ABC series "Moonlighting" (1987-88) and won a Best Supporting Actress Emmy Award for "People Like Us" (NBC, 1990).
Though occasionally appearing on episodic television and in features, the bulk of her acting work throughout the 1990’s was in made-for-television movies. In “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” (NBC, 1988), a Yuletide tale set on the home front during World War II, she played the mother of three children who are in some way involved in the war effort, including the youngest son (Jason Oliver) who has just enlisted. After appearing in the melodramatic Danielle Steele adaptation, “Palomino” (NBC, 1991) and the ABC murder thriller “Kiss of a Killer” (ABC, 1993), Saint starred alongside Jason Robards as a grandmother who takes in a 14 year-old orphan in the rural period drama, “My Antonia” (USA, 1995). In the made-for-TV miniseries “Titanic” (CBS, 1996), she appeared as the insufferably snobby Hazel Foley, while in “Time To Say Goodbye?” (Lifetime, 1997) she was a wife asked to assist in the suicide of her husband who discovers he has Alzheimer’s disease.
After appearing in an episode of “Fraiser” (NBC, 1993-2004) as Roz’s mother, Saint returned to the silver screen in “I Dreamed of Africa” (2000), a romantic drama starring Kim Basinger that turned into a nightmare at the box office after critics put the movie to bed. Then the actress starred in a few more MOWs, including the family Christmas tale “Papa’s Angels” (CBS, 2000) and the romantic drama “Open House” (CBS, 2003), before appearing as a shy librarian in the theatrically released “Because of Winn-Dixie” (2005), Wayne Wang’s family-friendly tale of a young girl and her new dog who travel their small Florida town bringing love and healing to people trapped in a state of longing and regret. She also scored a coup when she was cast as Clark Kent's adoptive mother in director Bryan Singer's much-anticipated revival of the original comic book superhero franchise, "Superman Returns" (lensed 2005).