Susan Saint James, the Emmy-winning actress known for McMillan & Wife and Kate & Allie, has died at 80 after pancreatic cancer, remembered for putting family first.
Fox News reported that Susan Saint James died Monday at age 80 after a battle with pancreatic cancer, citing People magazine and a statement from her representative.
She built a television career on charm, timing, and steady work, then largely walked away from Hollywood to raise a family and serve others. That choice, and the way she carried grief later, defined her as much as any role.
Saint James began in modeling before landing her breakthrough in 1968 as research assistant Peggy Maxwell on NBC’s “The Name of the Game.” A year later she won a Primetime Emmy for the part.
From 1971 to 1976 she starred opposite Rock Hudson as Sally McMillan on “McMillan & Wife,” playing the wife of a San Francisco police commissioner. She left before the sixth and final season in a contract dispute. Producers killed the character off in a plane crash.
She returned to weekly television from 1984 to 1989 on CBS’s “Kate & Allie,” co-starring with Jane Curtin as divorced friends raising kids under one roof. The sitcom sealed her place with a generation of viewers who knew her less as a glamour lead than as a working mother on screen.
After “Kate & Allie” ended, she stepped back from the industry. Family and charitable work, including long involvement with the Special Olympics, took priority over another run at stardom.
Saint James met longtime NBC executive and former “Saturday Night Live” producer Dick Ebersol in 1981 while hosting the comedy show. They married. She had earlier marriages to Richard Neubert and makeup artist Tom Lucas.
On November 28, 2004, the family suffered a crushing loss. Their youngest son, Teddy, 14, died in a private plane crash in Colorado.
A representative told People that her response showed who she was. Weeks after the crash, she delivered Teddy’s eulogy as a personal note to each of her other children and her husband, giving them words to heal.
The representative said:
"Her defining act: weeks after losing her youngest son, Teddy, in the November 28, 2004 plane crash, she delivered his eulogy as a note to each of her other children and her husband, giving them words to heal. Even in the deepest grief of her life, she put everyone else first. Days after the crash she sat with Tim Russert to thank the people who had reached out and to tell them the family was okay."
The same statement described her everyday manner:
"She never met a stranger. Every person she met became the most important person in the room at that moment, from a fellow board member to the clerk at the shoe store, who usually walked away knowing her entire life story."
And it closed on the endurance that followed:
"She brought that same fire and positivity to everything that followed, and never lost it."
Saint James is survived by her husband, Dick Ebersol; four children, Sunshine Lucas, Harmony Lucas, Charlie Ebersol, and Willie Ebersol; seven grandchildren; her sister, Mary Mercedes Dewey; and her service dog, Lola.
She leaves a screen résumé that still plays in reruns and a private record that valued marriage, children, and charity over another decade of fame. In an industry that rarely rewards stepping back, she did it anyway, and kept her footing when the hardest loss arrived.
Hollywood sells image. She bet on family, faith in other people, and showing up when it counted. That is the part worth keeping.
