Susan Saint James, the Emmy winner who starred in “McMillan & Wife” and “Kate & Allie,” passed away Monday, Oct. 26. She was 80.
A representative confirmed her death to People. Her family also shared a statement: “She never met a stranger. Every person she met became the most important person in the room at that moment.”
What Was Susan Saint James’ Cause of Death?
Saint James had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer before she passed away, the Associated Press reported. Her family hasn’t said when she was diagnosed or where she died.
An Emmy Right Out of the Gate
She was born Susan Jane Miller on Aug. 14, 1946, in Los Angeles, and grew up in Rockford, Illinois. She modeled in New York before moving to Hollywood in her early 20s.
Her first big part was Peggy Maxwell on NBC’s “The Name of the Game.” It won her the 1969 Emmy for outstanding continued performance by an actress in a supporting role.
Sally McMillan
In 1971, she was cast opposite Rock Hudson in “McMillan & Wife.” Hudson played a San Francisco police commissioner, and Saint James played his wife, Sally. She did five seasons and was nominated for more Emmys along the way.
She also made movies in that stretch, including “Outlaw Blues,” “Love at First Bite” with George Hamilton, and “How to Beat the High Cost of Living.”
‘Kate & Allie’
Her other signature show came in 1984. In CBS’s “Kate & Allie,” she and Jane Curtin played two divorced moms raising their kids together in one New York apartment. It ran until 1989 and got her two more Emmy nominations.
After that, she mostly stepped away from acting to be home with her kids. “They don’t need a mother who, when she walks in a room, they get shoved out of the way,” she told the Baltimore Sun in 1993, per Parade. She still turned up now and then on shows like “The Drew Carey Show,” “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” and “Suits,” and got her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2008.
Dick Ebersol and Losing Teddy
Saint James met Dick Ebersol when she hosted “Saturday Night Live,” which he produced. They got married 42 days later, in 1981. Ebersol later ran NBC Sports.
In November 2004, a private plane carrying Ebersol and two of their sons crashed on takeoff in Montrose, Colorado. Ebersol and their son Charlie survived. Their youngest, Teddy, was 14 and didn’t.
People sent her about 27,000 letters after the crash, and she answered 15,000 of them by hand, according to Parade. She spent a lot of the years after that helping other parents who had lost a child.
She is survived by Ebersol, her children Sunshine Lucas, Harmony Lucas, Charlie Ebersol and Willie Ebersol, seven grandchildren and a sister.
