Susan Saint James’ Cause of Death Confirmed

NEED TO KNOW

• The cause of death for Susan Saint James has been released
• The actress had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, her family announced
• Saint James died on Monday, Oct. 26, at age 80

Susan Saint James’ official cause of death has been confirmed. 

The actress died on Monday, Oct. 26, at age 80 from metastatic pancreatic cancer, according to a death certificate obtained by PEOPLE on Thursday, Nov. 5. The interval between onset of the cause and her death is listed as months.

On Oct. 26, a rep for Saint James confirmed to PEOPLE that the Emmy winner died after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Her family remembered her as someone who was “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.” 

Saint James “never met a stranger. 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 show store, who usually walked away knowing her entire life story,” the statement continued. “She brought that same fire and positivity to everything that followed, and never lost it.” 

Saint James first found fame in McMillan & Wife, where she played Sally, the onscreen wife of Rock Hudson’s Stewart McMillan, in 1971. She and Hudson starred as a detective and police commissioner couple on the NBC series for six seasons, through 1977.

The ‘80s sitcom Kate & Allie was her second hit series, and she and Jane Curtin played the titular characters, a pair of divorced best friends who decided to live together with their kids. In 1984, when the series premiered, she told PEOPLE of the role, “I could relate to the problems of a divorced woman.”

She also shared that she played a key role in getting Curtin, now 79, to sign on to the show.

“Every step of the way, before every meeting, every reading, every rehearsal, I was on the phone to Jane begging her to show up just one more time. Finally, we taped before a live audience, and they fell apart laughing during the first scene,” she revealed. “When we went backstage, Jane said to me, ‘Susan, I’ve never had so much fun in my whole life, and don’t you dare ever tell anybody I said that.’

Saint James married Saturday Night Live co-creator Dick Ebersol in 1981, and the couple shares sons Charlie and Willie, as well as Teddy, who died in a plane crash at age 14 in 2004. James is also the mother of Sunshine and Harmony Lucas, whom she shares with her ex-husband, Tom Lucas. She and Tom were married from 1971 to 1977.

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