TVLine reports that Saint James retired from regular acting when CBS's "Kate & Allie" ended in 1989, despite earning two Primetime Emmy nominations for playing Kate McArdle across the show's 122-episode run.

The reason was not scandal or a career slump but family logistics: the sitcom filmed in New York while her family lived in Litchfield, Connecticut.

Variety notes she had already been a television fixture since the late 1960s, starring opposite Rock Hudson on "McMillan & Wife" from 1971 to 1976 and winning an Emmy in 1969 for NBC's "The Name of the Game."

According to TVLine, the strain of juggling a hit sitcom with motherhood — she was a mother of four at the time — eventually took a physical toll that included kidney stones.

The New York-Connecticut commute turned what looked like a dream run into an unsustainable grind, and she stepped away rather than keep the series going.

Variety's account of her life notes she was largely retired from Hollywood after 1989, making only occasional appearances on shows including "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," USA Network's "Suits" and, most recently, a three-episode stint on Prime Video's "Upload."

In a 2010 Connecticut Magazine interview cited by Yahoo, Saint James revealed that leaving the spotlight triggered depression and a drinking problem she could not initially recognize.

"I no longer got a paycheck, for the first time since I was 15 or 16," she said, describing how her nightly glass of red wine was "more like a bowl." After entering therapy, she recognized she was "drinking to forget."

A friend's push toward a 12-step meeting, she said, changed her life: "I walked into a meeting, and I never looked back. I haven't had a drink in 11 years."

Her recovery proved vital when she and her husband of 45 years, longtime NBC executive Dick Ebersol, lost their 14-year-old son Teddy in a November 28, 2004 plane crash in Colorado that also seriously injured his brother Charlie and their father, per Yahoo, citing the Associated Press.

Variety reports the family described her defining act as delivering Teddy's eulogy weeks later as a note to each of her surviving children and her husband.

"She never met a stranger," the family said, recalling how she sat with NBC's Tim Russert days after the crash to thank people who had reached out.

For film and TV devotees, Saint James's career spans an unusual arc: the 1966 TV movie "Fame Is the Name of the Game" that became "The Name of the Game," the mystery series "McMillan & Wife" that she left amid a contract dispute — her character was killed off in a plane crash, TVLine notes — and films like "Love at First Bite" (1979) and "How to Beat the High Cost of Living" (1980).

TVLine says "Kate & Allie" is currently streaming on The Roku Channel. She received a Hollywood Walk of Fame star in 2008 and was a longtime Special Olympics advocate, survived by Ebersol, four children and seven grandchildren.