Susan Saint James, the Emmy-winning actress best known for McMillan & Wife and Kate & Allie, died on Monday, Oct. 26. She was 80. A representative confirmed to PEOPLE that she died after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
She started out in the mid-1960s. In 1968 she landed a role on NBC's The Name of the Game, playing research assistant Peggy Maxwell, and she won an Emmy for the part in 1969.
In 1971 she signed on to McMillan & Wife, playing Sally McMillan opposite Rock Hudson. She left the show before its final season over a contract dispute, and her character was killed off in a plane crash.
She then turned to films, including Outlaw Blues (1977) with Peter Fonda, Love at First Bite (1979), a vampire comedy with George Hamilton, and How to Beat the High Cost of Living (1980) with Jessica Lange and Jane Curtin.
In 1984 she starred with Curtin in the CBS sitcom Kate & Allie, as two divorced friends who move in together with their children. Saint James told PEOPLE in 1984 why the characters live together:
"Kate and Allie didn't plan this. It's just the best solution they could think of, and their friendship sustains them."
The show was filmed in New York, which let her stay with her family in Connecticut. She earned two Emmy nominations for it before Kate & Allie ended in 1989. After that she largely stepped away from Hollywood, with occasional guest roles on Suits and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
NBC executive Dick Ebersol was the man Saint James met in 1981 while she hosted Saturday Night Live. They married 42 days after meeting and had three sons together: Charlie, Willie and Teddy.
On Nov. 28, 2004, a private plane carrying Ebersol and their sons Charlie and Teddy crashed in Montrose, Colorado. Teddy, who was 14, was killed, along with the pilot and a flight attendant. Ebersol and Charlie survived. Afterwards, she sat down with NBC journalist Tim Russert on the Today show to thank people who had reached out.
Her family's statement to PEOPLE described her as "generous with her time and energy, which she valued more than money, and instinctively drawn to whoever needed lifting up. She taught her children to pause, be kind and look out for other people." "She never met a stranger," it added.
The family called what she did weeks after losing Teddy her "defining act": she "delivered his eulogy as a note to each of her other children and her husband, giving them words to heal."
Saint James was a longtime supporter of the Special Olympics. For decades she held a seat on the board of directors of the International Special Olympics organization. In a statement published Tuesday, Special Olympics said she "believed deeply in the power of inclusion," and the organization said she had been a board member and campaign co-chair for Special Olympics Connecticut. "Thank you, Susan, for being an extraordinary champion of our athletes," Special Olympics added.
At her 2008 Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony, she said: "The thing that really contributed to my success and happiness with my career was coupling it up with the work that I did with the Special Olympics."
She is survived by her husband, Dick Ebersol, four children, seven grandchildren, her sister, Mary Mercedes Dewey, and her service dog, Lola.
In August she turned 80. The family said she saw the Doobie Brothers the night before her birthday with her children and grandchildren, celebrated the day itself in her backyard with them, Ebersol and close friends, and told them it "was one of the best two days of her entire life."
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