RIP: Susan Saint James, Emmy-winning actress of McMillan and Wife and Kate and Allie, dies at 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.
Sharon Gles’s bio lists her as being signed to an exclusive contract at Universal in 1972 where she “remained under contract for the next decade, until the studio ended all talent contracts in 1981. Gless was held until 1982, earmarking her as the last contract player in the history of Hollywood.” Saint James was also one of the last Hollywood actors to be under an exclusive contract, explaining her appearances in numerous Universal productions throughout the late 1960s and ‘70s, before marrying NBC executive (and Saturday Night Live co-creator) Dick Ebersol in 1981, and going on to co-star with SNL alum Jane Curtin in Kate & Allie in the 1980s.