All All. Sign In. Cremated Women. Cremated, ashes with family. List activity. Kathryn Joosten. Actress Wedding Crashers Her credits are impressive for any actor, let alone one that only began the craft at age Although only put into action well into her middle years, Kathryn's dream began in her twenties, when her mother died of cancer in While dying in the hospital, her mother shared that her biggest regret was not following her dreams.
Kathryn vowed, at that moment, that she would someday pursue her own dream of acting. At the time, she was entering into a new career as a psychiatric nurse in a medium security wing for disturbed teenagers.
Through that job, she met and married a psychiatrist, gave birth to two boys and settled down as a suburban housewife in Lake Forest, Illinois, a well-to-do suburb of Chicago. But Kathryn never forgot her dream of acting, something that she never had time to pursue in-between caring for her children and husband. In , her husband's alcoholism led Kathryn to a divorce and a difficult situation; a single mother with two young sons. Rather than lose hope, she took the opportunity to change her life forever and follow her lost dream.
Kathryn took classes at Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago and performed at community theaters all over Northern Illinois. By day, she supported her family hanging wallpaper and painting the mansions of Lake Forest, working as a sales person for a Welcome Wagon company and using her contacts to book film and print locations in the houses she was painting.
By night, Kathryn was improving her skills and moving from community theater to semi-professional theater. Her first break was in Disney held a cattle call for street performers for Disney World. After standing in line for five hours, Kathryn got the part and moved shop to Orlando, Florida. Though she was living behind an adult arcade in the "tourist unfriendly" part of Buena Vista, Kathryn was finally earning her living through performance and loving it.
