Catherine O’Hara, the comedic actress best known for her roles in movies like Home Alone and on television shows like Schitt’s Creek, died on Friday, January 30. She was 71 years-old.
O’Hara Passes Away
O’Hara’s death was confirmed to People Magazine by her manager. No further details about her passing have been made available at this time. Indeed, as of this writing, no cause of death for O’Hara have been given.
O’Hara was born in Toronto, Canada in March of 1954. Indeed, she was the second youngest of seven children. O’Hara’s father worked for the Canadian Pacific Railway. Meanwhile, her mother was employed as a real estate agent.
O’Hara made her acting debut playing the Virgin Mary in a Nativity play. Once she graduated from high school, she got a job as a waitress at the Second City Theater in Toronto. There, she got a front row seat to watch the renowned theater’s legendary talent, which included Dan Aykroyd, Joe Flaherty and family friend Gilda Radner.
“I was lucky enough to watch everybody,” O’Hara previously said in a 2024 interview.
O’Hara Joins Second City
When O’Hara finally got up the nerve to audition for the theater herself, Flaherty had some discouraging feedback for her.
“He said, ‘Keep up the good work. Your day job, I mean: waitressing,’” she later recalled.
Thankfully, O’Hara certainly didn’t listen to this advice. When she auditioned for a second time, she landed a spot in the theater company in 1974. Joining her in this troupe was Eugene Levy, who would become one of O’Hara’s closest friends and collaborators.
O’Hara admitted to The New Yorker in 2019 that she was scared of being onstage at first.
“My crutch was, in improvs, when in doubt, play insane,” she confessed. “Because you didn’t have to excuse anything that came out of your mouth. It didn’t have to make sense.”
In 1976, O’Hara’s theater scored its own TV show, called Second City Television (and usually abbreviated as SCTV). O’Hara immediately became a staple on the sketch comedy series, which ran until 1984. O’Hara was nominated for five Emmys as part of the writing staff, with her winning one time.
O’Hara’s Movie Career
From there, O’Hara launched a successful movie career. In 1988, appeared in the movie Beetlejuice as Delia Deetz, the stepmother of Winona Ryder’s Lydia. Then, in 1990, O’Hara was cast in Home Alone as the harried mom of Macaulay Culkin’s Kevin.
“It’s a perfect movie, isn’t it?” she later said of this classic film in 2024.
“I need to care about the whole thing,” she added of how she chooses projects. “I don’t care to do a great role in a bad project. You want to be part of something good, and that’s how you go.”
O’Hara went on to reprise her role in 1992’s Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.
In 1996, O’Hara appeared in her first Christopher Guest mockumentary Waiting for Guffman. She later star in three more Guest-directed movies: Best in Show (2000), A Mighty Wind (2003) and For Your Consideration (2006).
In 2015, O’Hara teamed up with her old friend Levy to star in the television show Schitt’s Creek. When asked about her bond with Levy at the time, O’Hara replied, “I would love to think we continue to challenge each other, like a good married couple would do.”
O’Hara won the Emmy in 2020 for outstanding lead actress in a comedy series for her work on this show.
“I will forever be grateful to Eugene and Daniel Levy for the opportunity to play a woman of a certain age, my age, who gets to fully be herself,” she said in her acceptance speech.
O’Hara’s Personal Life
In her personal life, O’Hara married Bo Welch in 1992. They met when he was a production designer on Beetlejuice. The couple would go on to have sons Matthew and Luke.
“People always say, ‘Communicate,’ right? ‘Tell them how you’re feeling.’ We do a lot of it with jokes,” O’Hara said of her marriage in 2024. “We’ll make fun of each other instead of yelling at each other. Sarcasm helps!”
O’Hara is survived by Welch and their two sons.
Rest in peace, Catherine O’Hara.