NEW YORK — “Father Knows Best” star Lauren Chapin has died at age 80.

Her son, Matthew Chapin, announced his mother’s death from cancer on Tuesday night.

“After a long hard fought battle over the past five years, the time has come,” he wrote on Facebook.

He asked for thought and prayers for the Chapin family, including his singer sister, Summer-Healy Chapin, during “this incredibly tough time.”

Born on May 23, 1945, in Los Angeles, Chapin made her first onscreen appearance at the age of 6 in “Lux Video Theatre,” a popular TV anthology series that adapted Hollywood films into live 30-minute dramas.

After a few more small and uncredited roles on film and TV, she landed the part that would catapult her to fame, playing Kathy “Kitten” Anderson on roughly 200 episodes of the sitcom “Father Knows Best,” which ran from 1954 to 1960.

Her “Lauren Knows Best” website celebrated a life of highs and well-documented lows.

“Like many child stars, she faced personal struggles after early fame,” the site reads. “Yet her later years reflected remarkable resilience.”

Chapin wrote about her battles with addiction and triumphs as a survivor in her 1989 autobiography, “Father Does Know Best: The Lauren Chapin Story.”

She described her mother as an alcoholic and her father as sexually abusive, according to an Orlando Sentinel synopsis on the memoir.

After 1960, she disappeared from Hollywood for 16 years, during which time she dropped out of high school and got married and divorced twice. Per the Hollywood Reporter, she said another man got her involved with heroin, to which she was addicted until she was 25.

Along the way, she miscarried eight times.

Chapin found sobriety in 1970, and dedicated the second chapter of her life to Christianity and charitable endeavors. She also worked as a talent manager and took credit for helping launch the career of “Party of Five” star Jennifer Love Hewitt.

“The most important thing is not that we have a past,” Chapin told the Sentinel in 2001. “It’s what we do with the present that counts.”

Chapin briefly returned to the screen in the late ’70s and early ’80s, including for two “Father Knows Best” TV movies and the film “Scout’s Honor,” starring Gary Coleman.

She last appeared as Mama Bev in eight episodes of the 2016 YouTube series “School Bus Diaries.”

In addition to her two children, Chapin is survived by her older brother, fellow child actor, Michael Chapin. She was preceded in death by her other brother, Billy.

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