Catherine O’Hara, the acclaimed comic actor whose career spanned more than five decades and included unforgettable roles in “Home Alone,” “Best in Show,” and the Emmy-winning sitcom “Schitt’s Creek,” died Friday at her home in Los Angeles following a short illness, according to her representatives. She was 71.
Born Catherine Anne O’Hara on March 4, 1954, in Toronto, O’Hara built a reputation as one of comedy’s most versatile performers. Her professional journey began in Canada with the legendary sketch series “Second City Television” (“SCTV”), where she worked alongside future comedy stars including Eugene Levy, John Candy, Rick Moranis, and Martin Short. Her work on the show earned her an early Emmy Award for writing and opened the door to Hollywood.
By the mid-1980s, she was appearing in major films such as Martin Scorsese’s “After Hours” and Tim Burton’s “Beetlejuice,” in which she created a signature turn as the flamboyant sculptor Delia Deetz. She later reprised the role decades later in the legacy sequel “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.” One of her most enduring performances came in 1990 as the frantic but devoted mother in the holiday classic “Home Alone,” a role she repeated in its 1992 sequel. Macaulay Culkin, who played her on-screen son, paid tribute after her death, writing, “I thought we had time. I wanted more. I wanted to sit in a chair next to you. I heard you. But I had so much more to say. I love you. I’ll see you later.”
A defining chapter of O’Hara’s career was her long-running collaboration with director Christopher Guest. As part of his improvisational ensemble, she appeared in “Waiting for Guffman,” “Best in Show,” “A Mighty Wind,” and “For Your Consideration,” earning cult status for her fearless, offbeat performances. She also lent her voice to animated favorites including “The Nightmare Before Christmas” and “Chicken Little.”
In her 60s, O’Hara experienced a career resurgence as Moira Rose, the eccentric former soap star at the heart of “Schitt’s Creek.” The series, which debuted in 2015, became a cultural phenomenon during the pandemic and culminated in a historic Emmy sweep in 2020. O’Hara won her second Emmy for the role and memorably thanked the show’s creators for “the opportunity to play a woman of a certain age, my age, who gets to fully be her ridiculous self.” Dan Levy later wrote, “What a gift to have gotten to dance in the warm glow of Catherine O’Hara’s brilliance for all those years,” adding that it was “hard to imagine a world without her in it.”
Her success on “Schitt’s Creek” led to prominent late-career roles, including appearances in HBO’s “The Last of Us,” where she played a therapist opposite Pedro Pascal, and Apple TV+’s Hollywood satire “The Studio,” co-starring Seth Rogen. Pascal shared a tribute reading, “Oh, genius to be near you. Eternally grateful,” while Rogen wrote, “She was hysterical, kind, intuitive, generous… We’re all lucky we got to live in a world with her in it.”
In 2021, she received Canada’s Governor General’s Performing Arts Award, with the citation praising her as “a cultural trailblazer whose international success has inspired many artists and helped pave the way for the next generation of women in comedy.” That same year, she was named honorary mayor of Brentwood, reflecting her adopted hometown’s affection for her.
O’Hara is survived by her husband, production designer Bo Welch, their two sons, Matthew and Luke, and siblings Michael O’Hara, Mary Margaret O’Hara, Maureen Jolley, Marcus O‘Hara, Tom O’Hara and Patricia Wallice.
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