The 1954 film catapulted Saint, who played the ethereal foil to Brando’s seething macho boxer, to Hollywood fame.
She went on to star opposite Cary Grant in the 1959 Hitchcock masterpiece North By Northwest. Saint was considered a surprise choice to play a Hitchcock blonde, the double agent femme fatale who beguiles Grant.
She later said: “He worked with me from the outside in. My hair, my makeup, my shoes, my jewellery, my purse, my gloves, everything. And just from creating that exterior for me, he gave me the sense of a spy lady.”
Saint also worked with acclaimed director Otto Preminger, when she played opposite Paul Newman in Exodus in 1960.
Two years later she was Warren Beatty’s love interest in John Frankenheimer’s All Fall Down.
Saint could have scaled greater heights in Hollywood but chose to step back to raise her family with director Jeffrey Hayden.
Indeed, her eldest son, Darrell, was born just two days after she won her Oscar.
Saint made a big screen comeback of sorts as Superman’s adoptive mother in the 2006 blockbuster Superman Returns, when she was in her early 80s.
And she played a small part in the supernatural fantasy Winter’s Tale alongside Colin Farrell and Russell Crowe, and as a mother superior in the nun drama Mariette In Ecstasy, which came out in 2019.
But having first developed her acting chops in live television dramas, TV remained her preferred medium. She won an Emmy in 1990 for her role as a rich widow in the acclaimed miniseries People Like Us.
Saint was born on July 4, 1924, in Newark, New Jersey, to Quaker parents whom she credited with developing her sense of discipline.
She entered Bowling Green State University with plans to become a teacher but left with a degree in dramatic arts after discovering a passion for theatre.
Saint trained in New York at the Herbert Berghof Studio and then the Actors Studio – the home of method acting – which was co-founded by Kazan.
A rarity among Hollywood couples, she and Hayden’s marriage lasted for 65 years until his death in 2016.
With two stars on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame, Saint said her longevity had brought extra depth to her work.
She said: “The longer you live, the smarter you get, because you’ve been around, you’ve seen things.
“You’ve gone through different emotional experiences in your own life, and hopefully, you understand things better… And that makes you a better actress.”
– AFP