Susan Saint James: NBC's Sunday Night Football Tribute

Sunday night belonged to the Eagles and Commanders, but NBC set aside a few minutes first for someone who was family at the network. Susan Saint James, the actress who played Sally McMillan opposite Rock Hudson and Kate McArdle opposite Jane Curtin, was remembered on Football Night in America in a piece narrated by Bob Costas, NBC Sports said in its Week 8 notes.

She had died six days earlier. For a lot of football fans, the tribute was the first they'd heard of it, and her name shot to the top of Google's U.S. trending list overnight.

How NBC honored Susan Saint James on Sunday Night Football

The remembrance aired during the on-site edition of Football Night in America from Northwest Stadium in Landover, Maryland, hosted by Maria Taylor. NBC described Saint James in its release as an "actress and humanitarian" who "was married to former longtime NBC Sports Chairman Dick Ebersol." The network also posted the Costas segment online as Remembering the life of Susan Saint James.

Sports Business Journal reported ahead of kickoff that play-by-play voice Mike Tirico and analyst Cris Collinsworth would also remember her during the game itself.

The connection to the network went beyond her husband. Saint James' own breakout, and her only Emmy win, came on an NBC series.

Susan Saint James' cause of death

Saint James died Monday, Oct. 26, 2026, in Los Angeles after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, her representative told People, as Variety reported. She was 80.

Pancreatic cancer is often found late. USA Today noted, citing the Mayo Clinic, that symptoms often don't show up until the disease has spread.

Her family's statement, shared with People, didn't dwell on the illness. It described a woman who "never met a stranger" and who valued her time and energy "more than money." The clerk at the shoe store, it said, usually "walked away knowing her entire life story."

From The Name of the Game to Kate & Allie

She was born Susan Jane Miller in Los Angeles on Aug. 14, 1946, and grew up in Rockford, Illinois. According to The Guardian's obituary, a Life photographer at her brother's wedding told her she should model. She skipped college, modeled in New York and then Paris, and signed a seven-year contract with Universal at 19 after changing her name.

Her TV career moved fast after that:

• The Name of the Game (NBC, 1968-71): As editorial assistant Peggy Maxwell, she won the Emmy for supporting actress in a drama series in 1969.
• McMillan & Wife (NBC, 1971-76): She played the sharper-than-she-looks wife of Hudson's San Francisco police commissioner and picked up three more Emmy nominations. After she left in a contract dispute, the writers killed Sally off in a plane crash, and the retitled show lasted one more season.
• Kate & Allie (CBS, 1984-89): She and Curtin played two divorced moms sharing a Greenwich Village apartment. The sitcom ran six seasons and brought her two more Emmy nods.

There were movies in between. She was Peter Fonda's girlfriend in Outlaw Blues (1977) and went blonde to play the love interest of George Hamilton's Dracula in the 1979 spoof Love at First Bite. She told interviewers that even industry people didn't recognize her.

After Kate & Allie ended she mostly stepped away. Later credits were scattered: Law & Order: Special Victims Unit in 2006, Suits in 2011 and Amazon's Upload. She got her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2008.

Susan Saint James and Dick Ebersol

Saint James married Ebersol in 1981, her third marriage. They were together 45 years and lived in Litchfield, Connecticut, where she helped launch the soft-rock station 97.3 WZBG in 1992 and hosted one of its original shows, "Betty in the Beehive," Patch reported. The Guardian says she co-owned it until it was sold in 2024.

The family's hardest loss came on Nov. 28, 2004, when a plane crash in Colorado killed their 14-year-old son, Teddy. The family's statement called what she did next her "defining act." Weeks after the crash she gave his eulogy as a note to each of her other children and to her husband. Days after it, she sat down with NBC's Tim Russert to thank the people who had reached out and to say the family was OK.

She also gave decades of volunteer work to the Special Olympics.

She is survived by Ebersol; sons Charlie and Willie; Sunshine and Harmony, her children from her second marriage; a sister, Mercedes; and seven grandchildren, per The Guardian.

A send-off in prime time

Most TV stars of her era get an obituary and a round of social posts. Saint James got a few minutes in the middle of an NFL Sunday, narrated by Costas, on the network her husband once ran. It was a fitting place for it. She had been part of NBC's story since 1968.

It has been a heavy week for TV fans of a certain age; Patrick Stewart, Star Trek's Captain Picard, died at 86 two days after Saint James. If you grew up on Kate & Allie reruns, the Costas segment is worth the few minutes. It fills in the life she lived after the cameras stopped.