Susan Saint James

Susan Saint James died on Monday 26 October 2026, at the age of 80, after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Her death was confirmed to People by a representative the following day, and was reported by Variety, Page Six and others.

The family named her survivors as her husband Dick Ebersol, her children Sunshine Lucas, Harmony Lucas, Charlie Ebersol and Willie Ebersol, seven grandchildren and her sister Mary Mercedes Dewey. No details of a funeral or memorial had been made public at the time of writing.

Susan Saint James was born Susan Jane Miller in Los Angeles on 14 August 1946. Her mother, Constance (née Geiger), was a teacher, and her father, Charles Daniel Miller, worked for Mitchell Camera and later became president of the Testor Corporation, the model kit maker.

She was raised in Rockford, Illinois, where she began modelling as a teenager. She attended the Woodlands Academy of the Sacred Heart in Lake Forest, Illinois, and later Connecticut College.

Her first screen role was in the 1966 television film Fame Is the Name of the Game with Tony Franciosa. Early guest roles included two episodes of the first season of Ironside, and she had a supporting part in the 1968 film Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows.

From 1968 to 1971 she was a regular on The Name of the Game, playing research assistant Peggy Maxwell across stories led by Tony Franciosa, Gene Barry and Robert Stack. The role won her an Emmy Award in 1969. In the same period she played Charlene "Chuck" Brown, a fellow thief and love interest of Robert Wagner's Alexander Mundy, in It Takes a Thief.

Her first starring role came in 1971 as Sally McMillan, the supportive and spirited wife of Rock Hudson's police commissioner in McMillan & Wife. She earned four Emmy nominations for the part and left the series in 1976 after a contract dispute.

In film she starred with Peter Fonda in Outlaw Blues (1977), enjoyed a hit with Love at First Bite (1979) and appeared with Jessica Lange and Jane Curtin in How to Beat the High Cost of Living (1980). She also guest starred in M*A*S*H.

From 1984 to 1989 she starred opposite Jane Curtin in Kate & Allie, as Kate McArdle, one of two divorced mothers sharing a home in New York. The sitcom earned her two further Emmy nominations. In 1986 she was a celebrity guest commentator at WrestleMania 2.

After Kate & Allie she largely retired, returning for occasional roles such as the mother of her real life niece Christa Miller on The Drew Carey Show and a defence attorney on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit in 2006. She received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on 11 June 2008.

Saint James married Richard Neubert in 1967; the marriage lasted about a year. In 1971 she married make-up artist Tom Lucas, with whom she had a daughter, Sunshine, and a son, Harmony, before they divorced in 1977. While guest hosting Saturday Night Live in 1981 she met its executive producer Dick Ebersol, and they married within the year and had three sons.

On 28 November 2004 a private plane carrying Ebersol and their sons Charles and Teddy crashed on takeoff from Montrose Regional Airport in Colorado. Ebersol and Charles survived, but 14 year old Teddy was killed. Saint James later spoke publicly about loss and recovery, including as a speaker at The Women's Conference in 2007.

She was an active volunteer with the Special Olympics from 1972, served on its board and was a board member of the Telluride Foundation. In 1998 she co-founded the baby gift business Seedling and Pip with her sister and a friend. She held honorary degrees from six Connecticut institutions and was a vegetarian.

Saint James was part of two of the most popular television partnerships of her era, first with Rock Hudson in McMillan & Wife and later with Jane Curtin in Kate & Allie, a sitcom noted for its portrait of two single mothers making a life together. Across her career she received an Emmy Award and six further Emmy nominations. Beyond acting she is remembered for decades of work with the Special Olympics and for the openness with which she and her family spoke about grief after the death of their son Teddy.