Susan Saint James, the Emmy-winning actress who delighted TV viewers with her light-hearted turns on The Name of the Game, McMillan   Wife and Kate   Allie before quitting at the peak of her powers, has died. She was 80.

Saint James died Monday of pancreatic cancer, her family announced.

Survivors include her third husband, Dick Ebersol, the former Saturday Night Live executive producer and head of NBC Sports whom she married in November 1981. The couple soldiered on after losing their youngest child, 14-year-old son Teddy, in a 2004 plane crash.

Saint James was someone who was  generous with her time and energy, which she valued more than money, and instinctively drawn to whoever needed lifting up,  her family said.  She taught her children to pause, be kind and look out for other people. 

On the big screen, she went on the run with Peter Fonda in Outlaw Blues (1977); played the lustful target of Dracula in Love at First Bite (1979), starring George Hamilton; executed a heist with fellow suburbanites Jessica Lange and Jane Curtin in How to Beat the High Cost of Living (1980); and portrayed George Segal's wife in Carbon Copy (1981).

A contract player at Universal, Saint James portrayed the frequently kidnapped editorial assistant Peggy Maxwell for three seasons (1968-71) on the stylish 90-minute NBC drama The Name of the Game. (THR took a look back at the series in 2018).

Peggy worked at Howard Publications for all three of the rotating characters on the  wheel  series - Tony Franciosa as hotshot reporter Jeff Dillon, Gene Barry as kingly publisher Glenn Howard and Robert Stack as FBI agent turned magazine editor Dan Farrell.

Six months after The Name of the Game's final episode, Saint James was back on another 90-minute wheel series, McMillan   Wife, which began in rotation with Columbo and McCloud as part of the NBC Mystery Movie franchise.

Like Peggy, Saint James' Sally McMillan also got into trouble and helped solve crimes, here with her husband, San Francisco police commissioner Stewart  Mac  McMillan (Rock Hudson). She appeared on the show for five seasons through 1976, when
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