Meeting Eva Marie Saint of "North By Northwest"

When it comes to director Alfred Hitchcock's films, in addition to being masterpieces of suspense, they are also marked by the appearance of blonde actresses in the starring roles. "Psycho" featured Janet Leigh, "The Birds" starred Tippi Hedren, Grace Kelly was superb in "Rear Window" and Kim Novak starred in "Vertigo". My favorite film by Hitchcock is "North by Northwest", which stars another of the infamous "Hitchcock Blondes", the lovely and talented Eva Marie Saint. I met Janet Leigh years ago at a film festival of her films back in the 1990's.  My partner and I met Kim Novak in early 2012  when the reclusive actress made a rare appearance in Los Angeles.  So of course we jumped at the chance when there was an opportunity to meet Eva Marie Saint.

In-person encounters with Eva Marie Saint are few and far in between, as I have never even heard of another collector having met her.  This made it even more exciting but also added to the uncertainty of what to expect from Saint.  Would she sign autographs?  Would she sign multiples?  We really had no previous experience to base any expectations.

We arrived and began waiting to meet Eva Marie Saint.  Several decades have passed since Saint's turn in "North By Northwest" so we were dependent upon finding more recent photos of the actress on the Internet so we could spot her when (and if) we saw her.  After a few minutes, my partner said, "Here she comes".  Eva Marie seemed surprised when we approached her and asked for her autograph.  She immediately said that she would do "one each".  She then proceeded to ask each person their name and then personalized each photo with each of our respective names.  Besides us, there was only one other collector present and as soon as Eva Marie was finished signing, she hopped on an awaiting elevator.  My partner asked if she would take a photo with me but Ms. Saint replied, "No".  We were not sure whether she was adverse to taking a photograph at all or simply because the elevator and her husband were waiting on her.

It was great to meet the legendary Eva Marie Saint and add her to our collection.  We just met Martin Landau a few months ago who also is in "North By Northwest".  Hopefully, we will be able to meet Saint again in the future and have another shot at obtaining more autographs and possibly even a photo with her!