The Emmy-winning character actress Kathryn Joosten,  best known as the crotchety but lovable Karen McCluskey on Desperate Housewives and the president’s secretary on The West Wing, died on Saturday at her home in Los Angeles. She was 72.

In a striking case of art imitating life, two-time Emmy-award winning actress Kathryn Joosten’s own experience as a lung cancer patient is mirrored by her character’s battle with the disease on Desperate Housewives. A gripping scene toward the end of the Season 8 premiere shows Mrs. McCluskey in her doctor’s office when he tells her that the cancer that had been in remission for two years is back and that it has metastasized to her brain.

The actress Kathryn Joosten dies at 72 of lung cancer

Joosten, who was 72, died in California of lung cancer, 11 years after she was first diagnosed with the disease. In real life the actress Kathryn Joosten was a psychiatric nurse and single mother in suburban Chicago when she began her acting career at 42. She wrote on her Web site that she pursued her childhood dream of acting after getting involved with her hometown theater in Lake Forest.

Desperete Housewifes actress had a lung cancer

Joosten’s family said in a statement that the actress was surrounded by love and humour’til the en. They were laughing through their tears.

But after getting divorced and hearing her mother’s deathbed regrets at not having pursued her dreams, Kathryn Joosten decided to revisit her childhood passion for acting and became involved with her local community theatre. She worked then as a street performer at Disney World in Florida before moving to Hollywood in the mid-1990s and winning small roles in shows including Murphy Brown, Frasier and The Drew Carey Show.