When Eva Marie Saint was born, Calvin Coolidge was president, George Gershwin had simply premiered Rhapsody in Blue, Columbia Footage and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer had been nonetheless upstarts, and tv progenitor Charles Francis Jenkins was months away from demonstrating the primary synchronized transmission of images and sound.
Saint was born on July 4, 1924, which means she turned 101 years previous this Friday. She grew to become a centenarian this time final 12 months — with BFI noting that she’s the earliest surviving and the oldest residing Academy Award winner — and she or he shared her suggestions for a “good life” throughout these milestone celebrations.
On the time, Saint was on the brink of have fun her a centesimal birthday in Los Angeles with 4 generations of her “expensive, expensive household,” who had been flying in from across the nation, as she informed Individuals.
And the Hollywood legend informed the journal concerning the easy pleasures that had been making her life worthwhile. “I actually don’t really feel 100 years previous,” she mentioned. “I proceed to take walks out within the contemporary air, like watching baseball — particularly the Los Angeles Dodgers — and luxuriate in time with my household and mates. An excellent life.”
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Saint is probably finest recognized for 1954’s On the Waterfront, during which she made her feature-film debut, starred alongside Marlon Brando, and earned an Academy Award for Finest Supporting Actress. Her different big-screen credit embrace 1957’s A Hatful of Rain, the 1959 Alfred Hitchcock image North by Northwest, and 1960’s Exodus. In 2006, many years into her profession, Saint bought a blockbuster function when she performed Martha Kent in Superman Returns.
On tv, Saint starred within the 1977 miniseries How the West Was Gained, which earned her an Emmy Award nomination, and the 1990 miniseries Individuals Like Us, which earned her an Emmy win. She additionally recurred as Cybill Shepherd’s onscreen mother in Moonlighting and, extra lately, voiced Katara in The Legend of Korra.
On the private entrance, Saint was married to TV director and producer Jeffrey Hayden from 1951 till his dying in 2016, and so they had two kids, Darrell and Laurette.
Balancing her profession and her household was “by no means a problem” as a result of Saint “made choices,” as she mentioned in a 2014 CBS Sunday Morning interview. “I had an agent as soon as who wished me to do many extra motion pictures, and I mentioned, ‘I can’t. I can solely do one a 12 months, if that. I’ve kids, little kids.’ And he mentioned, ‘Properly, I assume you gained’t be a famous person.’ And I mentioned, ‘Properly, I assume not.’ [I] fired him.”