Susan Saint James, the Emmy-winning actress beloved for McMillan & Wife and Kate & Allie, died Monday at 80 after a battle with pancreatic cancer.
Susan Jane Miller Born on Aug. 14, 1946, Saint James built a television career defined by warmth, comic eccentricity, and an unmistakable off-kilter charm. In 1968 she was cast as Peggy Maxwell in The Name of the Game, a role that brought her three Emmy nominations and one win, in 1969. She went on to play Sally McMillan in the detective series McMillan & Wife (1971–1976), earning two Emmy nominations and a Golden Globe nomination for best actress in a television drama. As Kate McArdle in the sitcom Kate & Allie (1984–1989), she received a Primetime Emmy nomination for outstanding lead actress in a comedy series in 1984. In 1979 she was nominated for a Saturn Award for best actress for her role as Cindy Sondheim in the comedy Love at First Bite.
On screen, Saint James projected a charmingly unconventional spirit—a successor to Shirley MacLaine—whose endearingly clumsy, mildly kooky characters fit the late-1960s counterculture.
Off screen, she had a rare gift for connection: “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.”
One defining act came weeks after her youngest son, Teddy, was killed 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. Days after the crash, she sat with Tim Russert to thank the people who had reached out and to tell them the family was okay.
After leaving Kate & Allie, Saint James largely withdrew from Hollywood to focus on her family and charitable work, especially her longtime involvement with the Special Olympics.