Housewives actress in cancer fight

Kathryn Joosten, the wonderfully irascible neighbour ‘Mrs. McCluskey’ on Desperate Housewives, has revealed she has lung cancer.

“I’ve got a little hang-up here,” she told People Magazine, “but we’re going to handle it and move forward. I’m doing great.”

The actress, 69, who already won a bout with lung cancer in 2001, broke the news to producers this week as she expects her shooting schedule could be interrupted for treatment.

“They’re totally supportive,” she says. “I said, ‘If you want to put it in the story line, do it! Tell anybody you want, because the public’s going to know.’ ”

Joosten, once a heavy smoker who quit on the day she was diagnosed in 2001, adds, “My other goal is to try to erase some of the stigma of lung cancer.

“The first thing everyone says is, ‘Did you smoke?’ Yeah, I smoked,” says Joosten. “I smoked because Bette Davis said it was very glamorous. I smoked because it was seen everywhere and done everywhere. I got addicted because the tobacco companies add additives to their tobacco to make it more addictive. I’m damned mad at all of them. But that stigma has to go away.”

Source: People