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Aljean Harmetz wrote:Stardom beckoned, but Ms. Saint decided to raise a family and to make only one movie a year while her two children were growing up. She later recalled turning down a three-picture deal that her agent promised would make her “a superstar.” What she preferred, she reflected in 1996 to the Hollywood interviewers David Fantle and ‎Tom Johnson, was “to be a working actress with a home life that worked.”

“I have a life, and it is not lived on the set,” she said. “I felt that way when I was raising my kids, and I feel that way now. I don’t want make-believe children. When Donna Reed, the perfect American mother to millions of TV viewers in the 1950s, ended her show, her children were teenagers. She said to me, ‘Now I’m going to get to know my kids.’ I thought that was so very sad.”

Matt wrote: Thu Oct 08, 2026 2:58 am It also seems, from that interview, that Hitchcock had a strong opinion of the type of roles she should be taking, and she disagreed with him. I don't think she wanted to be the next Grace Kelly, and he probably didn't like that.