RIP: CATHERINE O'HARA

Sadly, legendary funny lady Catherine O’Hara has died. The Canadian actress's manager confirmed to the media on Friday, Jan. 30, that the comedy icon, known for roles in films like Beetlejuice, Home Alone and Christopher Guest mockumentaries like Best in Show, died at age 71. No further details were shared.

O’Hara was born in Toronto in 1954. She was the second youngest of seven children; her father worked for the Canadian Pacific Railway, and her mother was a real estate agent. Her first acting gig was portraying the Virgin Mary in a Nativity play. After graduating from high school, she got a job as a waitress at the Second City Theater in Toronto.

“I was lucky enough to watch everybody,” she said in 2024 of the theater’s legendary talent, which included Dan Aykroyd, Joe Flaherty and family friend Gilda Radner. When she auditioned to become a member, Flaherty had some discouraging feedback.

“He said, ‘Keep up the good work. Your day job, I mean: waitressing,’” she told PEOPLE. She didn’t listen and landed a spot when she auditioned again.

She joined the company in 1974. One of her stagemates was comedian Eugene Levy, who would become one of her closest friends and collaborators. O’Hara told The New Yorker in 2019 that at first she was scared of being on stage.

“My crutch was, in improvs, when in doubt, play insane. Because you didn’t have to excuse anything that came out of your mouth. It didn’t have to make sense.”

In 1976, the theater began its own TV show, called Second City Television (and usually abbreviated as SCTV). O’Hara was a staple of the sketch program, which aired on NBC in the ‘80s. O’Hara became known not only for her impressions of celebrities, including Meryl Streep and Brooke Shields, but also for original characters that became fan favorites. O’Hara was content with SCTV, but the show did not provide her with a consistent paycheck. “Our producer would get a deal with a network, and we’d have a show for a season or two, and then that deal would go away. There’d be a break, then we’d do the show again,” she said.

During one break in 1981, “I got asked to be on Saturday Night Live. And of course I said yes. Who doesn’t want to do that?” But then SCTV was picked up again and she went back to her home — before she’d ever done a single episode of SNL. Her best friend from high school, Robin Duke, took her SNL slot. “It all worked out the way it was supposed to,” she reflected. As part of the SCTV writing staff, she received five Emmy nominations, winning once.

Her film debut was 1980’s Double Negative, which also featured Levy and other SCTV costars like Flaherty and John Candy. Next, she appeared in Martin Scorsese's 1985 black comedy After Hours and 1986’s Heartburn. In 1988, she had a role in Beetlejuice as Delia Deetz, the stepmother of Winona Ryder’s Lydia. O’Hara reprised her role in the 2024 sequel Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice.

In 1990, she was cast in Home Alone as the harried mom of Macaulay Culkin’s Kevin. “It's a perfect movie, isn't it?” she reflected in 2024. “I need to care about the whole thing,” she said 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.” She reprised her role for 1992’s Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.

In 1996, she appeared in her first Guest mockumentary, Waiting for Guffman. She would also appear in 2000’s Best in Show and 2003’s A Mighty Wind, in which she and Levy sang together. She was called the actress the “gifted queen of the bittersweet” in a review of 2006’s For Your Consideration, another collaboration with Guest.

In 2015, she teamed up with Levy once again for Schitt’s Creek, created by his son Dan. It was not the first time she and Levy played characters who were romantically involved. Of their long working relationship, she told the media at the time, “I would love to think we continue to challenge each other, like a good married couple would do.”

In 2020, she won the Emmy for outstanding lead actress in a comedy series for the role. "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 part during her speech. She also won a Golden Globe and a SAG Award for the series.

Other TV roles for O’Hara included guest spots on Six Feet Under, Curb Your Enthusiasm and 30 Rock. She also received an Emmy nomination for her performance in the 2010 TV film Temple Grandin. She voiced characters in the animated films Frankenweenie, The Addams Family and Elemental, and in 2024, she appeared in the action film Argylle and season 2 of The Last of Us.

In 1992, she married Bo Welch. They met when he worked as a production designer on Beetlejuice. They shared sons Matthew and Luke. O’Hara is survived by them...