Kathryn Joosten
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| Kathryn Joosten | |||||||
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| Born | December 20, 1939 |
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| Years active | 1984-present | ||||||
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Kathryn Joosten (born December 20, 1939) is an Emmy Award-winning American television actress. Joosten did not begin to hone her craft until middle age in the 1980s, after taking acting classes in Chicago, Illinois. She started acting at age 44.
It was not until the mid-1990s that Joosten made the move to Hollywood, where she took guest roles in television series such as Home Improvement, Picket Fences, Murphy Brown, ER, Seinfeld, Frasier, Just Shoot Me!, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dharma & Greg and The Drew Carey Show.
In 1999, Joosten took the role for which she is best-known, as Delores Landingham, secretary to President of the United States Josiah Bartlet (played by Martin Sheen) on The West Wing. Joosten played the role for two seasons, until her character's death in a car crash in 2001. She would return to the show twice more in flashback episodes.
Joosten's role on The West Wing gave her an entrance into more significant guest roles on significant television series. Since 2001, she has appeared on TV in such shows as Scrubs (appearing in "My Old Lady", which won a Humanitas Prize as well as reappearing in a later episode), My Name is Earl, Spin City, The X-Files, Judging Amy, Monk, Charmed, Will & Grace, Malcolm in the Middle, Grey's Anatomy, The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, So Little Time, Gilmore Girls, The Closer and a recurring role as one of the less intimidating incarnations of God seen by the title character (played by Amber Tamblyn) on the now cancelled TV series Joan of Arcadia.
Recently, Joosten appeared in the film Wedding Crashers, starring Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson. Joosten also has appeared in numerous episodes of Desperate Housewives as Karen McCluskey, Lynette Scavo (Felicity Huffman)'s bickering neighbor. For this role, Joosten won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series, and appeared as a presenter at the 2005 Emmy Awards telecast. She also received 2006 and 2007 Screen Actors Guild Award nominations with the rest of the cast for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series.
In addition, Joosten has appeared in numerous television commercials such as one for V8. In 2007, in an appearance on The View, she revealed that she was a lung cancer survivor, after many years of smoking (which she subsequently quit), and gave some tricks for trying to beat the habit of smoking. Interestingly, her guest role on My Name is Earl revolved largely around her character attempting to quit smoking.
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