Susan Saint James Remembered on Sunday Night Football: NBC Sports Pays Tribute to the 'Kate & Allie' Star Who Died at 80
She was one of television's most familiar faces for two decades. On Sunday night, NBC Sports - the network her husband Dick Ebersol once ran - stopped its football broadcast to remember her, and America went searching for her name.
NBC Sports paid tribute to Susan Saint James on Sunday night during Football Night in America and Sunday Night Football, the Sports Business Journal reported, with Bob Costas narrating the tribute. Saint James died last week at 80 from pancreatic cancer, and the searches followed the broadcast: on the U.S. Google Trends listing read by this desk Sunday night, her name was the highest-volume trending search in the country, at more than 100,000 searches.
Saint James, who starred opposite Rock Hudson on McMillan & Wife before finding sitcom success with Kate & Allie, died on Oct. 26 after a battle with pancreatic cancer, her representative told People magazine, USA TODAY reported. She costarred with Rock Hudson in the 1970s crime series from 1971 to 1976 and with Jane Curtin in the sitcom Kate & Allie in the 1980s, CNN reported. Born Susan Jane Miller on Aug. 14, 1946, in Los Angeles and raised in Rockford, Illinois, she won an Emmy Award in 1969 for The Name of the Game, CNN reported.
The Sunday night tribute carried a family connection to the broadcast itself: Saint James was the wife of Dick Ebersol, the former longtime chairman of NBC Sports, the Sports Business Journal noted. She is survived by Ebersol, four children and seven grandchildren, USA TODAY reported.