ShareThisEva Marie Saint won an Oscar for her first movie role, in "On the Waterfront." But she may be best remembered for her performance opposite Cary Grant in Alfred Hitchcock's "North by Northwest." She plays mystery woman Eve Kendall, who has a romance with Grant's Roger O. Thornhill, though there's plenty else on her agenda.
The film includes some of Hitchcock's most famous scenes: the crop duster chasing Thornhill into a cornfield; the seduction scene aboard the train; the concluding chase across Mount Rushmore. The dialogue on the train is famously suggestive.
A 50th-anniversary DVD is out, with new features.
Saint, 85, spoke by phone from her home in Los Angeles. Incidentally, she does a pretty good Hitchcock imitation.
Q: The scenes on the train with the spicy dialogue are still very entertaining. And there are great details, like when Cary Grant is in the bathroom and picks up the little razor and stares at it.
A: I love that, the little razor. (Laughs) It was all so suggestive, all the sexual scenes, and no one took anything off, except shoes. (Laughs) (Hitchcock) had such a sense of humor, people try to copy him, but they don't succeed. Even the music I hear sometimes, I'll say to my husband, "Oh God, that sounds so similar to the theme of 'North by Northwest.' " So I guess you should be flattered when people try to copy you.
Q: Hitchcock was unhappy with the costumes the studio designed for you, so he took you clothes shopping in Manhattan.
A: They had already started the film in New York, and they had made the clothes at MGM. And (Hitchcock) saw them, in tests, and didn't like them. He said, "Get on a plane and come to New York, and we'll go to Bergdorf Goodman." So there I sat. I've told this story before. I must say, the stories I have to tell, I've been telling for 50 years, I wish I could make up some new ones! And he said to me (she breaks into her Hitchcock imitation), "Now, Eva Marie, anything you want, just tell me." So this model came by in the black dress with the red embossed roses and I whispered "Oh, I like that," so he said (going back to her Hitchcock voice again), "Wrap it up for Miss Saint." (She laughs) So I called him my sugar daddy from then on.
Q: Is Eve Kendall a femme fatale, or a parody of a femme fatale?
A: Do I have time to work on this essay? (Laughs) I think she is.
Q: I watched an interview with you where you took some of the air out of all those stories that Hitchcock was hard on his leading ladies.
A: Oh, my God, of course (there were those stories). I pricked that balloon a long time ago. Now Tippi Hedren would have a completely different story. I think at the time she was probably very vulnerable. ... She wasn't married. I was married then, and I'm a pretty secure lady, and he figured that, I guess. But the first time my agent took me to meet him -- it wasn't an audition, it was just to meet him and have lunch at his house in Bel-Air with his darling (wife) Alma. But my mom read somewhere that he liked beige and white gloves. So I had white gloves, having come from New York. I wore a beige dress and I had my white gloves. So the next day I knew I was in "North by Northwest," and I called my mom and said, "Well, you did it. I wore that beige and white, and that did it!" (Laughs)
Q: You say in the documentary on the DVD that Hitchcock gave you three general instructions, but not much detailed direction.
A: No, no, he did not. It was: lower my voice, don't use my hands and look directly into Cary's eyes at all times. Which was not challenging at all. (Laughs) When he was filming, when he was editing his film, he knew exactly what he wanted to do. And he had a storyboard, which I wasn't familiar with, but I saw years later at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where they had it all under glass. They had an evening of "North by Northwest." It was interesting because I could see where we were seated, how we were seated, because he had it all in his mind. But he wouldn't go into the emotional aspect of it all, and I think in his casting he just knew what you would do, I guess. But I still haven't figured out, 50 years later, what did he see me in that he saw me as this lady (Eve Kendall)?
Q: One of the best bits of dialogue is when Cary Grant gets his hopes up and asks what it means that there's only one bed in the stateroom, and you say, "It means you're going to sleep on the floor."
A: Wasn't I clever? (Laughs) When we were doing the love scene in the train, it kind of goes on and on, and we have our arms around each other and we're kissing. ... It's almost like a little dance, that's the way Hitch wanted it done. And the still (photographer) from the studio was on a ladder, taking pictures, and he got so involved in the sex scene that he fell off the ladder. He wasn't hurt, but we had to do it again. Which wasn't hard, kissing Cary Grant.
(E-mail Walter Addiego at waddiego(at)sfchronicle.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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