Susan Saint James, Emmy-winning actor of ‘McMillan & Wife’ and ‘Kate & Allie,’ dies at 80

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Susan Saint James, who co-starred with Rock Hudson in the 1970s TV crime series “McMillan & Wife” and the sitcom “Kate & Allie” in the 1980s, has died. She was 80.

People magazine, citing a representative for the actor, said Saint James died Monday after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

“She never met a stranger,” her family said in a statement to People. “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.”

Born Susan Jane Miller on Aug. 14, 1946, in Los Angeles, she was raised in the northern Illinois city of Rockford, where her father had transferred for work. She began modeling as a teenager in Paris.

At 20, she moved back to Los Angeles and landed a seven-year contract with Universal Studios. She made her television debut in the 1966 movie “Fame is the Name of the Game” with Tony Franciosa.

She got another break when it became a series called “The Name of the Game” in 1968, with rotating lead characters played by Franciosa, Gene Barry and Robert Stack. Saint James provided the show continuity in her role as Peggy Maxwell, a research assistant who worked for all three men. She won an Emmy Award for the part in 1969.

Before “The Name of the Game,” Saint James had a recurring role in the crime-caper series “It Takes a Thief” starring Robert Wagner. Her other early TV credits included “Ironside,” “McCloud” and “Alias Smith and Jones.”

Saint James had a supporting role in the 1968 movie “Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows” starring Rosalind Russell and Stella Stevens.

Breakout role in ‘McMillan & Wife’

She earned her biggest fame as Sally McMillan, the plucky wife of Hudson’s San Francisco police commissioner Stewart McMillan, in the hit series “McMillan & Wife” from 1971-76. She received three Emmy nominations for the role.

Saint James left the NBC show before its sixth and final season because of a contract dispute, with her character killed off in a plane crash. Saint James then turned to feature films.

She played opposite Peter Fonda in “Outlaw Blues” in 1977. She co-starred with George Hamilton in the 1979 vampire spoof “Love at First Bite” and joined Jessica Lange and Jane Curtin in the 1980 comedy heist “How to Beat the High Cost of Living.” She co-starred in the 1981 romantic comedy “Carbon Copy,” in which Denzel Washington made his movie debut.

In 1980, she guest-starred in an episode of “M(asterisk)A(asterisk)S(asterisk)H.”

After middling success on the big screen, Saint James reunited with Curtin in the CBS sitcom “Kate & Allie,” which ran from 1984-89 and earned Saint James two Emmy nominations as the free-spirited Kate to Curtin’s straight-laced Allie.

While guest-hosting “Saturday Night Live” in 1981, Saint James met Dick Ebersol, the show’s then-executive producer and the future chairman of NBC Sports. They married barely six weeks after meeting and had three sons, Charlie, Willie and Teddy.

Teddy died at age 14 in a 2004 private plane crash that also killed the pilot and flight attendant; Ebersol and Charlie survived with serious injuries.

The family had spent Thanksgiving in Los Angeles and were due to make multiple stops on the return trip. The flight landed first in Colorado, where Saint James got off to go to the family’s second home. It crashed upon taking off again for Indiana in snowy weather.

Her family’s statement mentions the loss: “Her defining act: weeks after losing her youngest son, Teddy, in the Nov. 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.”

Saint James filed for divorce from Ebersol in 2002, but they reconciled later that year. “We had a second chance,” she told People magazine in 2002. “I’m amazingly happier, so that’s a good sign.”

In his 2022 memoir “From Saturday Night to Sunday Night,” Ebersol called Saint James “the greatest partner I’ve ever had by far.”

After ‘Kate & Allie’

She retired when “Kate & Allie” ended, choosing to focus on raising her younger children in Litchfield, Connecticut, while Ebersol took the executive job at NBC Sports.

Saint James made occasional guest appearances after that, including as the mother of her real-life look-alike niece Christa Miller on “The Drew Carey Show,” as well as “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” and “Suits.” In 1999, she starred in a production of “The Miracle Worker” in Torrington, Connecticut.

In 1998, Saint James, her sister, Mercedes Dewey, and a friend founded Seedling and Pip, a baby gift basket business with a focus on books based in Litchfield, Connecticut.

She was a longtime supporter of Special Olympics, volunteering and serving on its board of directors.

Besides her husband, she is survived by daughter Sunshine and son Harmony from her second marriage to makeup artist Tom Lucas, with whom she remained friends; sons Charlie and Willie with Ebersol; and Miller, whose first TV role was on “Kate & Allie.” Saint James’ first marriage to Richard Neubert ended in divorce.