Susan Saint James

Susan Saint James — born Susan Jane Miller on August 14, 1946, in Los Angeles, California — was an American actress, activist, and mother whose warmth and vitality lit up every room she entered. Raised in Rockford, Illinois, she began modeling as a teenager, attended Woodlands Academy of the Sacred Heart, and later studied at Connecticut College for Women before moving to California at age twenty to chase a dream she had carried since childhood: she once said that at age seven, watching a Rhonda Fleming film, she knew she would be a movie star and have a legitimate reason to see Rock Hudson every day. That dream took shape quickly. In 1966 she appeared in the television movie "Fame Is the Name of the Game," and when it became the series "The Name of the Game" in 1968, she earned three Emmy nominations as the resourceful Peggy Maxwell, winning in 1969. Guest roles on "It Takes a Thief" and growing stardom followed, but it was "McMillan & Wife" (1971–1976) — opposite Rock Hudson himself — that made her a household name, earning her four more Emmy nominations. She returned to television in 1984 as Kate McArdle in the beloved CBS sitcom "Kate & Allie," co-starring her friend Jane Curtin. Two more Emmy nominations followed, and the show ran until 1989. In her mid-forties, Saint James stepped away from the screen to pour herself into family and community. For decades she served on the International Special Olympics Board of Directors, founded the Susan Saint James Celebrity Poker Tournament at Foxwoods to benefit Special Olympics, and served as celebrity chairperson for Civitan International. She also co-founded the baby gift basket business Seedling and Pip in 1998. Six Connecticut universities honored her with honorary doctorates in recognition of her philanthropic contributions. In 2008, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Her personal life held both great joy and profound grief. She married NBC executive Dick Ebersol in 1981 — a romance that reportedly moved from first meeting to engagement in six weeks — and together they raised five children. On November 28, 2004, a plane crash near Montrose, Colorado, took the life of their youngest son, Teddy, age fourteen. She carried that loss with her always, and carried it with grace: Teddy's words — "Life is a blur, love is the focus" — were tattooed on her skin. Susan Saint James died on October 26, 2026, at the age of eighty, after a battle with pancreatic cancer. She leaves behind a legacy not only of Emmy Awards and Hollywood stars, but of countless lives she touched by pausing, looking, and truly seeing the person in front of her.