Al Weisel
Idol Chatter: Eva Marie Saint
By Al Weisel
Premiere, September 2000, p. 43
Toward the end of lunch at L.A.'s Bel Air Hotel, Eva Marie Saint, dressed in a smart pink suit, her sky-blue eyes sparkling mischievously, turns the table on her interviewer, asking, "What is it like when you see me in all these films and then you meet me? Were you intimidated?" A reasonable question, considering some of the 75-year-old star's unforgettable portrayals. She played a repressed Catholic girl in her first film, 1954's On the Waterfront, and received a Best Supporting Actress Oscar; traded sexually charged barbs with Cary Grant, as a cool, aloof spy in 1959's North by Northwest; and won an Emmy for her selfish society matron in the 1990 miniseries People Like Us. Her leading men have included Marion Brando, Montgomery Clift, Warren Beatty, Paul Newman, and—offscreen—her husband of 48 years, TV director Jeffrey Hayden. Yet no label—serious Method actress, Hitchcock ice queen, movie star, wife, mother—comes close to pinning down this warmly humorous, disarmingly frank actress.
Was it fun shooting the upcoming I Dreamed of Africa on location?
In my first scene, the very first day, we all had to put our hands in this bag and take out a snake. The other women were like, Oooh! I thought, My son will be so proud of me. He has had a python for 18 years, and I, like a good mom, would go to the store and get live mice to feed it. That was part of my routine during the week.
What was your audition for On the Waterfront like?
[Elia] Kazan put me in a room with Marion Brando. He said, "Brando is the boyfriend of your sister. You're a Catholic girl and not used to being with a young man. Don't let him in the door under any circumstances." I don't know what he told Marlon; you'll have to ask him—good luck! [Brando] came in and started teasing me. He put me off-balance. And I remained off-balance for the whole shoot.
Did Brando really improvise the glove scene as you were shooting?
The way Kazan worked, you were constantly rehearsing, and at one of those rehearsals I dropped a white glove. Most actors would have picked it up and put it in my hand. [Brando] put it on his hand and kept doing the scene. I had to stay there to get the glove back. We showed it to Gadge [Kazan], and when we were up to bat we repeated it. I was in awe of [Brando's] sensitivity. As an actor you must be sensitive, but to be that sensitive is unsettling, because you wonder what he's really thinking. It reminded me of Monty Clift in Raintree County. He was so sensitive and shy, and I thought I was shy. He invited me to lunch, and until the food came he didn't say one word. Then the food came—thank God—and we went back to the set and did the love scene.
Hitchcock had a reputation for molding actresses into his own creation.
I think he did [that with] Tippi Hedren. She was inexperienced, very vulnerable. I'm an independent person, and I think he sensed that, and we were more adult-to-adult. Tippi and I have been doing a lot together for Hitchcock's 100th anniversary [last August]. I said, "I can't believe we're talking about the same man." I thought he was fun, like a big bear.
He had everything so planned out was that constricting for you?
He had storyboards, but within that you could do what you wanted. When I was climbing Mount Rushmore, he didn't say, "Take off your heels." That was one thing he left out of the storyboards. Well, I've been to the Actor's Studio; I know you don't climb Mount Rushmore with your shoes on.
Was Cary Grant different offscreen?
Cary Grant was just as charming offscreen. Adorable. Giving. He would say, "See, Eva Marie, you don't have to cry in a movie to have a good time. Just kick up your heels and have fun." Hitchcock said, "I don't want you to do a sink-to-sink movie again, ever. You've done these black-andwhite movies like On the Waterfront. It's drab in that tenement house. Women go to the movies, and they've just left the sink at home. They don't want to see you at the sink." I said, "I can't promise you that, Hitch, because I love those dramas."
You made The Sandpiper with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton at the height of the media madness surrounding them.
They couldn't go anywhere. They had to eat in their hotel room. I could go out and do whatever I wanted. When I was with Cary Grant making North by Northwest, we went to see Judy Garland perform, and when we walked into the theater, the place went crazy. I was terrified. I said, "I don't know how you handle this." He said, "All these people saw me, and they're so glad they came tonight." I guess he meant he was making some contribution to their lives. He still charged them 25 cents an autograph. He said it went to the Actors' Fund; I'm not so sure. Between that night and watching the Burtons, I felt that to be a superstar was not for me. My agent said, "If
you want to be a superstar, you've gotta work more." I said, "Well, I guess I don't want to be a superstar. My family comes first."
How did you meet your husband?
He saw me on the subway, from the back, in my purple corduroy coat, with a book that my Dad had given me, with EVA MARIE SAINT in gold letters. A blond vision, he says. Weeks later he was talking to a mutual friend who then introduced us, so he saw me from the front. He asked me out for coffee. I said, "I can't sit around having coffee. I have all these appointments, and a lot of my friends sit around having coffee talking about the jobs they didn't get." Two weeks later he asked me to coffee again and I said, "I really don't have the time, but thank you." A month later he asked me to lunch and I said, "I'd love to," because I had to eat lunch.
Some actors you've worked with, like Warren Beatty, who played your younger lover in All Fall Down—have reputations for being flirtatious.
When I was leaving the All Fall Down set in my station wagon—because I had two little kids—[Beatty] knocked on the window. I rolled it down and he said, "Are you really happily married?"
When you played Tom Hanks's mother in 1986's Nothing in Common, did you have any inkling he would become such a big star?
I knew he was so solid. So sweet. I would walk in and he would say, "Well, heeeeere she comes," which would make me giggle. There's a certain amount of integrity Tom has. I think Fonda had it. I think Tom was going through a divorce at the time, and he was so sad. It really hurt him, and I thought that was admirable. That isn't typical in our business.
Was it hard playing that horrible socialite in People Like Us?
Yeah, it was. There was an earthquake during the shoot. I was in bed with a tray, and everyone left and forgot about Eva Marie in bed. I think I was playing the part too well. They were like, "Let that bitch die in the quake!" ■
Al Weisel is the co-author, with Larry Frascella, of Live Fast, Die Young: The Wild Ride of Making Rebel Without a Cause, being published in October 2005.