Kathryn Joosten dies at 72

[Canon]

Kathryn Joosten, the Emmy-winning actress best known as the irascible Karen McCluskey on Desperate Housewives and President Bartlet’s trusty secretary Mrs. Landingham on The West Wing, died Friday, June 1, of lung cancer. She was 72.

Joosten’s memorable roles on the two Emmy-winning dramas — she played the no-nonsense Dolores Landingham on Wing for three seasons and became a series regular on Housewives in 2004 — were particularly significant because of her late entry into Hollywood. The star, who working as a psychiatric nurse in Illinois and living with her husband and two sons, decided to follow her lifelong dream of acting after her marriage broke up in 1980.She took classes from Chicago’s famed Steppenwolf Theatre and landed bit parts in community stage productions, and then Joosten — who moved to Los Angeles in 1995 — slowly began scoring small TV roles on shows like Family Matters, Roseanne and NYPD Blue. It was The West Wing, though, that solidified her spot as a beloved character actress. While she didn’t have a large role, Joosten was so beloved that when Sorkin killed Mrs. Landingham off in a fatal off-screen collision with a drunk driver, a California state assemblyman delivered a tribute to her character and called her “a great American.”

While political praise was nice, Joosten’s move to Wisteria Lane finally got her the industry accolades she deserved. Her Mrs. McCluskey got to utter some of the dramedy’s best lines (“We going for drinks or mammograms?” she once said to Nicollette Sheridan’s Edie, after giving her clevage-baring outfit a once-over), and earned Joosten the Outstanding Guest Actress Emmy in 2005 and 2008. The star — a former smoker who first battled lung cancer in 2001 — was preparing for her fifth season of Housewives when she got the news in August 2009 that her cancer had returned. “I’ve got a little hang up here,” she told People.com. “But we’re going to handle it and move forward.”

http://insidetv.ew.com/2012/06/02/kathryn-joosten-dies/

She was without a doubt the best thing to come out of Desperate Housewives.

[minx]

A great actress. I'm so glad she stuck around long enough to help give the final episode of DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES the heartfelt ending we all wanted.

[Scarlett]

Aw, this is sad. I McClusky and was so sad when the character died in the finale. I would agree that Joosten's McClusky was one of the better characters on the show. I can't believe she passed so soon after the finale.

[The Lovely Sue Ellen]

So Sad
I really loved Karen McCluskey she was one of the best characters on the show

[Sarah]

Heartbroken to hear this, didn't know she was ill She was amazing!! Loved her as Karen. xx

[david1987]

One of the best characters, RIP.

[Scarlett]

Eerie that she and her character died of the same thing.

[Luv4Cliff]

Very sad to hears this. She was a great character on Housewives. It was very brave of her to play that last storyline, considering she was actually ill at the time it was being filmed.

[Scarlett]

It was nice to see her again, even in her ill state, instead of being told that she died off camera.

[Stimpy]

actually i knew she was ill. & had cancer in real life. i read this a couple years ago in an interview, & they wrote it into the show i think to explain why she wasn't on it. anyways i forget what the exact explanation was. but the cancer had gone away for awhile than came back. & she like her character was going through Chemo during the last season. & i just knew she was going to go this year. not cause

her character died in the finale. but really cause i don't think they made her look that sick, i just have a feeling that's how ill she really looked in real life. from all the chemo & the cancer. so while i am thrilled that she was able to give her character closure. & i am glad that it was written in on how much she was loved at the end as well. i dunno maybe that was one of the reasons why they ended the show this year? actually i've always wondered what the characters thought of her,

since all they did was ask favors from her mainly. so it was nice to learn that they really did care for her character. though i'm sure she did apperiate the humor they put in that episode where her character wanted to kill herself.

anyways that's what my gut tells me anyways that she was going to pass away this year. i just didn't of course know when. anyways it breaks my heart she died. i watched a bad "Roger Corman" movie she did a couple years back on "Syfy Channel" i forget which one it was. & she was the best part of that whole bad film. so i was pretty pissed when she had her head get bit off. he he

[Karin Schill]

Reading this news brought tears to my eyes. I had no idea she had cancer for real either.
RIP and my thoughts goes out to her family and friends...