Emmy-winning actress Susan Saint James died Monday at age 80 after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, according to People magazine, which cited a representative for the actor.
Born Susan Jane Miller on Aug. 14, 1946, in Los Angeles and raised in Rockford, Illinois, Saint James began modeling in Paris as a teenager before signing a seven-year contract with Universal Studios at 20. She won an Emmy Award in 1969 for her role as research assistant Peggy Maxwell on "The Name of the Game," providing continuity across the series' rotating leads.
Saint James earned her widest fame as Sally McMillan, the wife of Rock Hudson's San Francisco police commissioner, on the hit NBC series "McMillan & Wife" from 1971 to 1976, garnering three Emmy nominations. She left before the final season amid a contract dispute, with her character written out via a plane crash.
After film roles in "Love at First Bite," "How to Beat the High Cost of Living" and "Carbon Copy" — which marked Denzel Washington's movie debut — Saint James returned to television success opposite Jane Curtin in the CBS sitcom "Kate & Allie" (1984-89), earning two more Emmy nominations as the free-spirited Kate.
While guest-hosting "Saturday Night Live" in 1981, Saint James met executive producer Dick Ebersol; they married six weeks later and had three sons. Their youngest, Teddy, died at 14 in a 2004 private plane crash that also injured Ebersol and another son. "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."
Sources: Las Vegas Review-Journal
Original reporting: Las Vegas Review-Journal →
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