dual personalities

We were sad to note the passing of actress Eva Marie Saint the other day. She was 102 and had led quite a life. A classic beauty, she was not your run-of-the-mill Hollywood actress. She was married to the same man for 65 years (until his death) and she raised her own children, making only one movie a year while they were young. She evaded super-stardom and she was fine with that.

In looking at her resume, I was impressed with the smart choices she made during her long career. I think I will watch The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming (1966) in her honor. It is a favorite of mine. She is the perfect foil for Carl Reiner’s frenetic performance.

Another favorite, and one of her lesser known movies, is That Certain Feeling (1956) in which Bob Hope plays a divorced comic strip cartoonist who is hired as a ghost-writer by pompous Larry Larkin (George Sanders) who happens to be the fiancé of his ex-wife played by Saint. It’s the one with Jerry Mathers as the little lost boy who steals the show. I saw it as a child on television and was quite moved by the Jerry Mathers character.

Eva Marie Saint is quite believable as the girl from Port Huron, Michigan, who aspires to be someone else, but finds out she is just a girl from Port Huron. And that’s okay. The screenplay by Norman Panama, Melvin Frank and I.A.L. Diamond is a silly, but sophisticated, concoction that they excelled at writing. Just what the doctor ordered for October 2026.

And here are fourteen lessons learned in the Cancer School of Wisdom. They apply to everyone.