Susan Saint James, the Emmy-winning actress who starred opposite Rock Hudson in “McMillan & Wife” and later anchored the sitcom “Kate & Allie,” died Monday at 80. A representative told People the cause was pancreatic cancer. Her family said she was “instinctively drawn to whoever needed lifting up,” and added that “she never met a stranger.”
Born Susan Jane Miller on August 14, 1946, in Los Angeles, she grew up in Rockford, Illinois. She briefly attended Connecticut College, modeled in New York and then moved to Hollywood. Her breakthrough arrived in 1968 on NBC’s “The Name of the Game,” where she played a research assistant. The role brought her three Emmy nominations and one win during five seasons. Stardom followed in 1971 with “McMillan & Wife,” the police mystery pairing her with Hudson. She left the series over a contract dispute. Film work included the 1979 vampire comedy “Love at First Bite.”
She returned to television in 1984 with “Kate & Allie.” The sitcom starred her and Jane Curtin as divorced friends raising their families under one roof. Critics praised the show for presenting mothers as complete, independent people, with Saint James’s free-spirited Kate offsetting Curtin’s more conservative Allie. The series ran six seasons, ending in 1989, and earned her two more Emmy nominations. She largely retired afterward to focus on family, though she occasionally took guest roles and joined a virtual reunion with Curtin.
Her personal life drew attention too. She met NBC sports executive Dick Ebersol in 1981 while he was producing “Saturday Night Live,” and the two married. In 2004, tragedy struck when their youngest son, Teddy, died in a plane crash. She later appeared on “Today” with family friend Tim Russert to thank fans for their condolences.
Away from the screen, she co-founded Seedling and Pip, a baby gift basket company, in 1998 with her sister and a friend. She is survived by Ebersol, four children, seven grandchildren and her sister, Mercedes Dewey. Colleagues and fans have remembered her for warmth and comic timing that carried across two eras of prime-time television.
