Susan Saint James, star of ‘Kate & Allie’ and ‘McMillan & Wife’, dies at 80

See more Toronto Sun on Google — save as a Preferred Source

Susan Saint James, the Emmy-winning star best known for her roles on McMillan & Wife and Kate & Allie, has died. She was 80.

The prolific actress died Monday after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, a rep for Saint James confirmed to People.

Her family remembered her as someone who was “generous with her time and energy, which she valued more than money, and instinctively drawn to whoever needed lifting up. She taught her children to pause, be kind and look out for other people,” they said in a statement.

“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,” they continued.

The family also recalled what they called “her defining act.” Just weeks after losing her youngest son, Teddy, in a plane crash on Nov. 28, 2004, “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.”

The statement concluded: “She brought that same fire and positivity to everything that followed, and never lost it.”

Susan’s early years

Born Susan Jane Miller in Los Angeles on Aug. 14, 1946, she moved with her family to Rockford, Ill., where she got her start as a model.

She was soon cast as Peggy Chan in the 1966 made-for-TV movie Fame Is the Name of the Game. She reprised the role, under the stage name Peggy Maxwell, in the subsequent series The Name of the Game, earning an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a series in 1969.

Saint James also appeared in several films, including Outlaw Blues, Carbon Copy and Love at First Bite, but TV was where she shone.

Hitting it big

She followed up her Name of the Game fame with appearances on McCloud and Alias Smith and Jones before landing the role of Sally McMillan on McMillan & Wife opposite Rock Hudson.

Saint James earned three Emmy nominations for her performance in the series that ran from 1971 to 1976 before reuniting with her How to Beat the High Cost of Living co-star Jane Curtin on Kate & Allie in 1984.

She played Katherine “Kate” McArdle opposite Curtin’s fellow single mother Allie Lowell, nabbing two more Emmy nominations while Curtin won two back-to-back Emmys on the sitcom that ran for six seasons.

Saint James pretty much retired after the series wrapped but did make the odd guest spot, notably on a 1996 episode of The Drew Carey Show, on a 2006 episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and a 2011 episode on Suits.

Saint James, whose niece is Shrinking and Scrubs star Christa Miller, had been married three times, to scriptwriter Richard Neubert from 1967 to 1968, makeup artist Thomas Lucas from 1971 to 1977, and current husband, Saturday Night Live producer Dick Ebersol, whom she wed in 1981.

She is survived by Ebersol, her four children (daughter Sunshine and son Harmony from her marriage to Lucas and sons Charlie and Willie with Ebersol), her sister Mary Mercedes Dewey, and her beloved service dog Lola.

RECOMMENDED VIDEO

1. 

   Canada
2. 

   Columnists
3. 

   Toronto Blue Jays
4. 

   Soccer
5. 

   World