Saint James was born Susan Jane Miller on August 14, 1946, in Los Angeles, one of four children of Constance (née Geiger), a teacher, and Charles Daniel Miller, who worked for Mitchell Camera and later became the president of the Testor Corporation. Saint James was raised in Rockford, Illinois, where she began modeling as a teenager. In her younger school years she attended the Woodlands Academy of the Sacred Heart in Lake Forest, Illinois. She later attended Connecticut College. She changed her surname to Saint James at age 20 when she pursued an acting career.
Saint James's first screen role was in the TV movieFame Is the Name of the Game (1966) with Tony Franciosa, launching her career when it became a series two years later. Among her other early television appearances were two episodes of the first season of Ironside ("Girl in the Night", which aired in December 1967, and two months later, "Something for Nothing", as a different character). She also had a supporting role in the 1968 film Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows, the sequel to The Trouble with Angels.
From 1968 to 1971, as a result of her first role in Fame Is the Name of the Game, Saint James had a regular part in the series The Name of the Game, winning an Emmy Award for her role as research assistant Peggy Maxwell in 1969 and establishing her as a popular young actress. The series format, set at a large media company, featured rotating lead characters played by Tony Franciosa, Gene Barry, and Robert Stack; generally only one of their characters was seen each week. Saint James provided a measure of series continuity by appearing as a research assistant at various times to all three. She appeared in approximately half the episodes, usually in a supporting role, although Peggy Maxwell was the primary character in the second-season episode "The King of Denmark", alongside Franciosa's character Jeff Dillon. Saint James was also prominently featured in the first-season story "Pineapple Rose" (a Gene Barry segment), when her character was kidnapped in a case of mistaken identity.
Saint James as Peggy Maxwell in the television series The Name of the Game, 1969
In 1967, Saint James had a small part in the pilot episode of the crime-caper series It Takes a Thief, starring Robert Wagner. This led to a recurring role playing a new character, Charlene "Chuck" Brown, Alexander Mundy's fellow thief and casual love interest. She was featured in four episodes of the series from 1968 to 1970. She went on to appear in the pilot episode of the 1971 western series Alias Smith and Jones.
Then came her first starring role as Rock Hudson's younger supportive wife, Sally McMillan, in the popular lighthearted crime series McMillan & Wife (1971–1976), for which she received four Emmy Award nominations. She left the show due to a contract dispute but went on to further her career as an actress in feature films, such as co-starring with Peter Fonda in the film Outlaw Blues (1977). She achieved significant success co- starring with George Hamilton in the vampire comedyLove at First Bite (1979) and followed up with a role in the comedy How to Beat the High Cost of Living (1980), co-starring Jessica Lange and Jane Curtin. Between films, she made a guest appearance in the March 3, 1980, episode of M*A*S*H (episode 192: "War Co-Respondent"). After other film ventures failed to establish her in cinema, she returned to television, starring in the comedy series Kate & Allie opposite Jane Curtin from 1984 until 1989. She received two more Emmy Award nominations for this role. In her mid-40s, she retired after Kate & Allie ended.
In addition to motherhood (her second-youngest son was born during the fourth season of Kate & Allie), she was an active volunteer with the Special Olympics (an organization she began actively supporting in 1972). She served on the Special Olympics board, and represented Civitan International for the Special Olympics as their celebrity chairperson. She was a board member of the Telluride Foundation.
In 1998, she, her sister (Mary Mercedes Dewey), and a friend, Barrie Johnson,[citation needed] founded Seedling and Pip, a baby gift basket business. Saint James owned WZBG Radio in Litchfield, Connecticut, with iHeart Radio Chairman Bob Pittman. She went back to school in her 50s to become a master gardener.
Saint James married aspiring writer-director Richard Neubert in 1967, but the marriage lasted only a year. She was married a second time in 1971, to Thomas Lucas, a makeup artist. They had a daughter, Sunshine Lucas (born 1972), and a son, Harmony Lucas (born 1974). They divorced in 1977.
While guest-hosting Saturday Night Live in 1981, Saint James met the show's executive producer Dick Ebersol. They married within the year and had three sons: Charles, Willie and Edward "Teddy" Ebersol. In March 2002, Saint James filed for divorce from Ebersol, but the couple reconciled later that summer.
On November 28, 2004, a private plane carrying Dick, Charles, and Teddy crashed during an attempted takeoff from Montrose Regional Airport in Colorado. Dick and son Charles survived, but their son Teddy, aged 14, died, as did pilot Luis Alberto Polanco Espaillet and flight attendant Warren T. Richardson III.
