Just before Saturday Night Live’s traditional goodnights this weekend, the screen went dark and the sound was muted for another of the show’s traditions: a memorial card for a star or staff member connected to the show—a host, a music guest, occasionally a writer, producer, or music supervisor—who had passed away.
It was the second week in a row that goodnights had been preceded by one of these tributes. The actor Patrick Stewart, who hosted once in 1994, was honored last week.
The star in this case was Susan Saint James, the gifted comedy actress who starred in the TV series McMillan & Wife and Kate & Allie—and twice hosted SNL in the 1980s.
Both stars died the same week: Saint James on Oct. 24, Stewart on Oct. 28. The show honored Stewart with a memorial card three days after his death; Saint James’ tribute didn’t appear until a week later.
That may have seemed appropriate in terms of their impact on the business they were in. Stewart was arguably the bigger star in recent years, while Saint James had largely stepped back from performing in the last four decades of her life.
But at one point, Susan Saint James could legitimately have been called the First Lady of Saturday Night Live. That period happened to fall during the five-year interregnum in Lorne Michaels’ leadership of the show, when he stepped away from his iconic creation.
In 1981, when Saint James first hosted, the show was being overseen by Dick Ebersol, the longtime NBC producer and executive whose own SNL history traced back to his assignment in the mid-1970s to find new late-night entries for the network. That led to the invention of Saturday Night Live—and, significantly, to the hiring of Lorne Michaels to run it.
Ebersol stepped in to produce the show himself after NBC’s original choice to succeed Michaels in 1980, Jean Doumanian, failed spectacularly, leaving SNL inches from cancellation.
He ended up supervising the show for four years, firing all of Doumanian’s cast members except two—Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo—and later casting SNL legends Billy Crystal and Martin Short.
He also booked Susan Saint James, whom he had never met, to host the show on October 10, 1981.
Six weeks later, they married.
As wife of the executive producer, Susan was a frequent presence during the Ebersol years, hosting again on April 16, 1983.
The key qualifier here is “the Ebersol years.” Those years remain a sort of subset in the history of the show, often set apart as less memorable, if essential to the show’s survival.
The delay in honoring Saint James, whatever the reason, carried an echo of the sort of caste (and cast) divisions between eras of the show—as well as a connection to the long saga of the relationship between the two men most responsible for launching it.
In books and films depicting SNL’s history, Michaels is justly celebrated as the driving creative force behind Saturday Night Live. Ebersol is often portrayed as the “business” guy, the “network” guy, necessary at the start but not an ongoing participant in the show’s creative direction or ultimate success.
Or else as an outright impediment to Michaels.
In Jason Reitman’s 2024 film Saturday Night, Ebersol comes across as a kind of company-man square, urging Michaels on the night of the premiere to reconsider doing the show live because they’re not ready and the network is actually hoping they fail.
That was not as Ebersol remembered it.
In interviews, Ebersol never failed to credit Michaels, hailing his genius while laying out his own crucial role in getting the show on the air. For his part, Michaels has often publicly praised Ebersol as an essential collaborator.
In his subsequent career, Ebersol had ample opportunity to establish the highest of credentials as a producer of live television, running NBC’s massive efforts to televise numerous Olympic Games.
It wasn’t hard to find comedy talents who worked under Michaels who were willing to downplay Ebersol’s contributions to SNL. But that never led to any break in the personal relationship. The connection between the two men lasted—and ran deep.
That was never more evident than in the aftermath of the tragedy that struck Ebersol and Saint James when their young son Teddy was killed in a plane crash that severely injured Dick as well.
Michaels flew to Colorado immediately after the crash to be with Dick and Susan. He was also a presence at the funeral in Connecticut, where Susan delivered as heart-wrenching a eulogy as anyone could ever imagine, speaking with elegance, grace, and humor—and more composure than almost anyone else in the church could have summoned at that moment.
Paul Simon, Lorne’s best friend, had also become close with Ebersol and his family. At Susan and Dick’s request, he performed his song “Citizen of the Planet.” The 14-year-old Teddy had come to love the song because his father had used it as the backing music to close the Olympics in Athens only a few months earlier that year.
The song, the last Simon recorded with Art Garfunkel, had been gestating for years, going back to a much earlier late-night moment, when Simon demoed a portion of it during an appearance with David Letterman during his first year at NBC’s Late Night with David Letterman in 1982.
Every year, after the “In Memoriam” segments at the Oscars, the Emmys, and the Grammys, there are debates about who perhaps deserved to be mentioned but was left out for time, or for lack of full worthiness.
Many viewers likely had no idea what Susan Saint James’ connection to SNL was this past weekend. She was no longer in show business, no longer really famous. She was, in the second half of her life, as she had always been, a warm and lovely person.
And, in a way not common to those who receive a quiet memoriam just before the goodbyes to close the show, she remained a part of the SNL family.
The show did well to remember her.
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