Eva Marie Saint: Hitchcock 'didn't give much direction'

She said no to Alfred Hitchcock.

Oscar-winning actress Eva Marie Saint was on the set of Hitchcock's 1959 classic "North by Northwest" when the director told her she shouldn't make any more "sink-to-sink" movies. He meant films where she played dowdy housewives at a sink.

"I said, 'No, I can't promise that,'" Saint told me during a recent telephone interview. "I do roles because I love the roles. I find them as rewarding as chasing across Mount Rushmore with Cary Grant."

The actress, now 86, and Turner Classic Movie's consummate film host Robert Osborne are coming to Chicago's Music Box Theatre, 3733 N. Southport Ave., at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday night for a silver-screen showing of "North by Northwest." The event is part of TCM's Classic Film Festival around the nation. Other screenings are being held in Boston, San Francisco, New York and Washington, DC.

"Hitch was a very interesting, complicated man," Saint said. "He didn't give much direction. But he had the story in his mind. He knew exactly what he wanted to do. There wasn't much editing. The movie was in his head. I was fascinated by that.

"He was so kind. He was a very classy fellow. He wore a tie and a suit on the set. So did the crew. I was so impressed he imported his bacon from Denmark. I was that young."

Saint won the supporting actress Oscar opposite Marlon Brando in Elia Kazan's 1954 classic "On the Waterfront." She has made only a smattering of movies, and a lot more television roles.

"My agent told me, 'If you want to be a superstar, do more films.' I guess I didn't want to be a superstar," she said. "My family always came first. I had my daughter just before I did 'North by Northwest,' so I was on the set giving my baby a bottle. It doesn't sound sexy, but that's how I did it."

How did the New Jersey-born Saint go from being a student at Bowling Green State University in Ohio to a bona fide Hollywood star?

First, a speech professor wrote her a lengthy letter telling her she had the chops to make it as an actress, if that's what she wanted. ("I still have that letter on my desk in front of me right now," she said.)

Second came her parents.

"I went to my mom and dad and I asked them, 'What do you think if I changed my major and decided to be an actor?' And do you know ... I get very emotional when I ... (long pause) ... They took my hand and they said, 'Honey. you do whatever you want to do. Just do your very best.' It was very courageous of them. When they supported me, it was the wind behind my back."

Saint spent about a week filming "North by Northwest" in Chicago, where she also made Jackie Gleason's last movie "Nothing in Common" in 1986. She headlined at Chicago's Blackstone Theatre in 1979 with Henry Fonda in "First Monday in October."

"I remember telling Hank, 'Isn't it the best of both worlds, to be here in Chicago with these amazing audiences?' And he said yes, it was."

Hard to believe, but Cary Grant almost turned down his role in "North by Northwest" because he thought he was too old, at 55, to play Roger O. Thorton.

"No!" Saint shouted. "He could have been 155! He was larger than life and so sweet."

The able disabledJoin me and film historian Raymond Benson as Dann Raymond's Movie Club presents "I am Not an Animal!," an overview of how Hollywood's view of the disabled has drastically changed since Todd Browning's 1932 film "Freaks." Clips from "The Miracle Worker," "The Best Years of Our Lives," "A Beautiful Mind," "Mask," "The Elephant Man," "Shine" and many others will be shown and discussed. The Club starts at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at the Schaumburg Township District Library, 130 S. Roselle Road, Schaumburg. Free admission. Go to www.stdl.org or call (847) 985-4000.Repo 'Men' or 'Man'?Dann: I remember the original "Repo Man" with Harry Dean Stanton and Emilio Estevez. I vaguely remember space aliens living in a car trunk. - Nancy WilliamsDear Nancy: You have a good memory. The "alien bodies" in the trunk of the repossessed car were actually condoms. However, Alex Cox's 1984 "Repo Man" has nothing to do with the new "Repo Men," based on the book "The Repossession Mambo." - Dann