Eva Marie Saint Talks the Making of Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘North By Northwest’
As Eva Marie Saint just turned 101 this Independence Day, July 4, 2025, we flashback to an interview we did with the star in 2000. While hyping a new documentary, Destination Hitchcock: The Making of North By Northwest, the star chatted with us about one of her most iconic roles, Alfred Hitchcock‘s 1959 masterpiece, North by Northwest.
Eva Marie Saint laughs as she recalls one of her first thoughts on reading the screenplay for North By Northwest, Alfred Hitchcock’s classic 1959 comic thriller that teamed Saint with Cary Grant. “By the time I read it the second time,” she says, “I thought, ‘Oh, this would really be fun!’”
Audiences have been having the same reaction for more than 40 years.
Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and Teddy Roosevelt in North by Northwest
“I had such a wonderful experience,” she says. “The first meeting I had with [writer/director Peter Fitzgerald] I just sensed his enthusiasm, then I got all excited again about the making of [North By Northwest]. I think [Peter] caught the fun — the fun of making it … we worked hard, but we had such a good time working with Hitch … and somehow he captured that.”
The fun of shooting the classic began when Saint — already an Oscar winner for her first film, On The Waterfront (1954) — became Hitchcock’s choice to play Eve Kendall. However, MGM did not agree. They wanted Cyd Charisse, whom they had under contract. Saint laughs, “Hitchcock wanted the ‘cool blonde.’ I remember saying to my husband, ‘Hitchcock sees me as a sexy spy lady!’ And my husband said, ‘So do I!’ He’s a director, so there I had the OK from Hitch and my husband!”
Everett Collection
Of course, Saint got the part, and the film ended up having that magical chemistry so rare in Hollywood. The documentary, released in 2000, does indeed capture the jovial spirit involved with the shoot, as documented by interviews with costar Martin Landau, screenwriter Ernest Lehman and Hitchcock’s daughter Patricia. Still photos show the cast relaxing and joking around on the set, and we hear anecdotes of Grant dashing to his room after shoots because there was no police protection when they filmed in New York. We also learn the secrets of how some famous scenes and stunts were shot, including the United Nations scene (it was illegal to shoot there, so Hitch hid a camera in a truck across the street and filmed Grant walking in, right past security guards) and the final battle atop Mount Rushmore. (“I have to say [to people], ‘I hate to disappoint you, but, no, we weren’t up there!’” Saint says, referring to fans who still ask if they really shot on top of the monument.)
Much of the fun and excellence onscreen, of course, came from Hitchcock’s brilliance and handling of the shoot. Saint praises Hitch, who has sometimes wrongly gained a reputation for viewing actors as cattle. “His demeanor on the set and his relationship with the actors … the respect he showed [them] … he checked out everything … he was so prepared. … People try to copy him and they don’t quite make it, and every time I see something or hear some music, [I think] ‘Oh, they’re stealing that music!’ or ‘Oh, that’s Hitchcock!’”
Courtesy Everett Collection
In addition to the humor in the film, there are also plenty of steamy scenes between Saint and Grant, which are erotic even by today’s standards, let alone those of 1959. Saint agrees, then adds slyly, “But we kept our clothes on, didn’t we?”
Her early career work was in live television, and she has returned many times over the years with TV movies and guest appearances on hit shows. She is also active on the big screen, starring with Kim Basinger in 2000’s I Dreamed Of Africa, 2006’s Superman Returns and 2014’s Winter’s Tale, though her most recent work has been voiceover work for animated series and podcasts. When not working, Saint says, “We [she and Jeffrey Hayden, her husband of nearly 50 years] spend a lot of time with our grandchildren, and then we’re up [at our home] in Santa Barbara on the weekends, where we play tennis. … We still love playing around and playing together!”
And it is such playfulness that makes North By Northwest one of her greatest movies in the eyes of fans, and is the reason for this excellent documentary. While discussing how a famous on-camera blooper referred to in the documentary got left in the final print without being noticed, Saint offers a comment that could very well refer to the whole movie: “We’re still talking about it — and maybe that’s what Hitch had in mind!”
This article originally appeared in our sister publication, Channel Guide Magazine, in September 2000.
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Classic Hollywood Hunks
September 2019
Cary Grant, Sean Connery, Rock Hudson and Paul Newman, smoldered onscreen and, in addition to being smokin’ hot, they were effortlessly cool.
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