Susan Saint James, star of Kate & Allie and McMillan & Wife, dies at 80

Susan Saint James, the Emmy-winning actress best known for McMillan & Wife and Kate & Allie, died Monday, Oct. 26. She was 80. A representative told People she died after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

A career that spanned our whole childhood

Born Susan Jane Miller in Los Angeles in 1946 and raised in Rockford, Illinois, she started modeling as a teenager. She made her acting debut in 1966 and two years later landed a regular role on The Name of the Game, which won her the Emmy for supporting actress in a drama series in 1969.

From 1971 to 1976 she played Sally McMillan opposite Rock Hudson on McMillan & Wife, the wife of a San Francisco police commissioner. She left over a contract dispute before the final season in 1977.

Then came the one most of us remember. On Kate & Allie, which ran on CBS from 1984 to 1989, she and Jane Curtin played two divorced moms raising their kids together in a Manhattan apartment. Over her career she picked up three Emmy nominations for The Name of the Game, three for McMillan & Wife and two for Kate & Allie. She got her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2008.

Family and faith in people

Off screen she was married to former NBC executive Dick Ebersol and was a longtime advocate for the Special Olympics. The family lost their youngest son, Teddy, in a plane crash on Nov. 28, 2004. In their statement, her family said she "never met a stranger," and that even in her deepest grief she put everyone else first.

She is survived by her husband, four children and seven grandchildren.

The Radazoid take

Kate & Allie was one of those shows that was just on in a lot of our houses, usually while we were supposed to be doing homework and were actually perfecting the art of looking busy. Two parents doing their best for their kids, with jokes instead of lectures. That was the whole formula, and it worked.

What stands out in the tributes isn't the Emmys. It's that the people who knew her best talk about how she showed up for other people, especially after losing a son. That's the kind of legacy that outlasts reruns. Rest easy.