Hitchcock cast her as Eve Kendall in ‘North by Northwest’

Eva Marie Saint, whose acting career stretched across nine decades from post-college radio work to a 2006 appearance in “Superman Returns,” died Tuesday at her home in Los Angeles. She was 102.

Saint was born in 1924 in Newark, N.J., and her family later moved to Delmar, N.Y., near Albany. She attended Bowling Green State University in Ohio, where she developed an interest in acting. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in 1946, she found work in radio and earned her first paycheck as an off-camera applauder on “The Borden Show,” Variety reported.

She worked in radio and did some modeling before moving into television, first on “Camp Hoop La” and then as a regular on “One Man’s Family.” Her early television work led to multiple Emmy nominations before she won the best supporting actress Emmy in 1990 for the miniseries “People Like Us.”

Saint made her feature film debut in 1954’s “On the Waterfront,” playing Edie Doyle opposite Marlon Brando’s Terry Malloy. The New York Times wrote in its review at the time that “amid scenes of carnage, [Saint] gives tenderness and sensitivity to genuine romance.” She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the role.

More movies followed, including “That Certain Feeling” in 1956 and “Raintree County” and “A Hatful of Rain” in 1957.

In 1959, Alfred Hitchcock cast Saint as the femme fatale Eve Kendall in the spy thriller “North by Northwest,” opposite Cary Grant. The film is widely considered an all-time classic, ranking No. 40 on the American Film Institute’s list of 100 Greatest American Movies of All Time.

Saint married television director and producer Jeffrey Hayden in 1951, and they had a son and a daughter. Hayden died in 2016 after 65 years of marriage.

Her subsequent films included “Exodus” (1960), “All Fall Down” (1962), “The Sandpiper” (1965), “The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming” (1966), “Grand Prix” (1966) and “Loving” (1970). She returned to television with a recurring role on “Moonlighting” and continued to appear in TV movies through the 1990s.

In her later years, Saint appeared in films including “I Dreamed of Africa” (2000), “Because of Winn-Dixie” (2005) and “Superman Returns” (2006). She held two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame — one for her work in motion pictures and one for television.