Catherine O’Hara, the beloved, multi-award-winning actor, writer and comedian sadly passed away on Friday, January 30 at her home in Los Angeles following a brief illness. She was 71.
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| From left: Catherine O'Hara in 'Schitt's Creek,' a recent publicity photo and 'Home Alone 2' | Everett Collection; Jerry Avenaim (2) |
O’Hara launched her extraordinary career as one of the ensemble members of the star-making cast of SCTV before gaining acclaim in such films as Beetlejuice, Home Alone, A Mighty Wind and, in a full-circle embrace of her TV roots that earned her an Emmy Award, Schitt’s Creek.
O’Hara was most recently seen reprising the role of Delia Deetz in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, as well as season two of the HBO Max critically acclaimed series The Last of Us, and in the hit comedy series The Studio from Point Grey Pictures for Apple TV. For her performances in both The Last of Us and The Studio, O’Hara earned an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Guest Actress In A Drama Series and Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series.
Her film credits include lead and supporting roles in Beetlejuice, Home Alone, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, After Hours, Heartburn, The Life Before This, Penelope, Away We Go, Where the Wild Things Are, A.C.O.D., The Right Kind of Wrong, The Nightmare Before Christmas and many more.
O’Hara collaborated with Christopher Guest and co-writer Eugene Levy four times on the critically acclaimed mockumentary films Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, A Mighty Wind, and For Your Consideration. Her performance in the latter won her the 2007 National Board of Review Award for Supporting Actress.
Among her many guest appearances on TV are Six Feet Under and Curb Your Enthusiasm. Her role in the HBO’s Temple Grandin earned her Primetime Emmy, Satellite, and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations.
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| Miley In the 'Harvey Beaks' Episode 'The Case of the Missing Pancake' | Nickelodeon |
On Nickelodeon, O’Hara voiced Miley, Harvey Beaks’ maternal grandmother, on the Harvey Beaks episode "The Case of the Missing Pancake." She was also the voice of Jackie Martin on the Nick@Nite's stop-motion adult animated series, Glenn Martin, DDS.
She first performed with Toronto’s Second City Theatre and later, with fellow alumni including Levy, created the iconic sketch comedy show SCTV. O’Hara won an Emmy Award and earned four Emmy nominations for her writing on the show.
Launching in 1976, the hugely influential SCTV would feature some of the most soon-to-be-superstar comedians of the era. In addition to O’Hara, the show also known as Second City Television starred the late John Candy, Harold Ramis and Joe Flaherty, along with Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Rick Moranis, Dave Thomas and Martin Short. It aired from 1981-83 in late-night on NBC as SCTV Network 90.
Among O’Hara’s most indelible SCTV characters were edge-of-a-breakdown lounge singer Lola Heatherton (a portmanteau of real-life performers Lola Falana and Joey Heatherton), whose fawning catchphrase “I love you! I wanna bear your children!” was enthusiastically offered to bigger-name stars, and Lorna Minnelli, a mash-up of the Judy Garland daughters Lorna Luft and Liza Minnelli.
Other notable characters included bawdy nightclub singer Dusty Towne, and Sue Bopper Simpson, the self-actualized feminist writer-performer who, along with Andrea Martin’s Libby Wolfson wrote and performed the not-so-big-hit musical I‘m Taking My Own Head And Screwin It On Right And No Guy’s Gonna Tell Me That It Ain’t. In the latter, O’Hara and Martin skillfully if lovingly mocked the Gretchen Cryer-Nancy Ford 1978 hit musical I’m Getting My Act Together and Taking It on the Road.
O’Hara’s celebrity parodies for SCTV included Brooke Shields, Lucille Ball, Elizabeth Taylor, Katherine Hepburn, Morgan Fairchild and gossip columnist Rona Barrett.
Decades later, in the final two seasons of the hit CBC series, Schitt’s Creek, in which she played charmingly eccentric former soap star Moira Rose, wife of Eugene Levy’s Johnny Rose and mother of Daniel Levy’s David and Annie Murphy’s Alexis, O’Hara received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series, a Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Comedy Television Series, a SAG Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series, a Critics Choice Award for Best Actress in a Comedy Series, a TCA Award for Individual Achievement in Comedy, and multiple Canadian Screen Awards for Best Performance by an Actress in a Continuing Leading Comedic Role amongst others. O’Hara also garnered Emmy, Golden Globe and SAG awards in the Best Ensemble categories alongside her castmates Eugene Levy, Dan Levy and Annie Murphy.
O’Hara is survived by her husband Bo Welch and sons Matthew and Luke, along with siblings Michael O’Hara, Mary Margaret O’Hara, Maureen Jolley, Marcus O‘Hara, Tom O’Hara, Patricia Wallice.
A private celebration of life will be held by the family.
R.I,P. Catherine O'Hara, March 4, 1954 – January 30, 2026
