Eva Marie Saint (born July 4, 1924) is an American actress who has starred in films, on Broadway and television in a career spanning seven decades. She won an Academy Award for her feature film debut in On the Waterfront (1954), and later appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller North by Northwest (1959). Saint received Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations for A Hatful of Rain (1957) and won an Emmy Award for the miniseries People Like Us (1990). Her film career also includes a lead role in Exodus (1960) and supporting roles in Because of Winn-Dixie (2005), and Superman Returns (2006).

Saint was born in Newark, New Jersey, the daughter of Eva Marie (née Rice) and John Merle Saint. She attended Bethlehem Central High School in Delmar, New York, graduating in 1942. Eva Marie was inducted into the high school's hall of fame in 2006. She studied acting at Bowling Green State University, while a member of Delta Gamma Sorority. There is a theater on Bowling Green's campus named for her. She was an active member in the theater honorary fraternity, Theta Alpha Phi.

Saint's introduction to television began as an NBC page. In the late 1940s, she began doing extensive work in radio and television before winning the Drama Critics Award for her Broadway stage role in the Horton Foote play The Trip to Bountiful (1953), in which she co-starred with such formidable actors as Lillian Gish and Jo Van Fleet. In 1955, she was nominated for her first Emmy for "Best Actress In A Single Performance" on The Philco Television Playhouse for playing the young mistress of middle-aged E. G. Marshall in Middle of the Night by Paddy Chayevsky. She won another Emmy nomination for the 1955 television musical version of the Thornton Wilder classic play Our Town with co-stars Paul Newman (in his only musical) and Frank Sinatra. Her success and acclaim were of such a high level that the young Saint earned the nickname "the Helen Hayes of television."