Catherine O’Hara, Comedy Legend And Star Of Home Alone And Schitt’s Creek, Has Died At 71 – SlashFilm

Comedy legend Catherine O’Hara, whose brilliance stretched from her uproarious work on the Canadian sketch comedy present SCTV to her Primetime Emmy Award-successful portrayal of Moira Rose on “Schitt’s Creek,” has died on the age of 71. Selection has confirmed that she handed away at her residence in Los Angeles “following a quick sickness.”

Actually, O’Hara’s impression on movie and tv can’t be overstated. She was a double-menace on “SCTV” as an actor and a author and received a Primetime Emmy for the latter in 1982 by way of her work on the traditional “Ethical Majority” episode, wherein station supervisor Man Caballero (Joe Flaherty) shamelessly kowtows to his advertisers’ calls for for adjustments to their programming. Her characters have been myriad, however a few of my favorites have been singer/actor Lola Heatherton, Dusty Towne, Brooke Shields, and over-keen Hello-Q contestant Margaret Meehan (who drives Eugene Levy’s Alex Trebek right into a rage by buzzing in with solutions earlier than he is learn the questions).

O’Hara was nonetheless on “SCTV” when she started dabbling in films as properly. She made her movie debut within the critically panned Canadian rom-com “Nothing Private,” however, thankfully, it was a small function. In the long run, she did not break by in films till 1985, when she wholesale heisted scenes taking part in a perky Mister Softee driver turned vigilante in Martin Scorsese’s darkish comedy traditional “After Hours.” She was additionally terrific as a Washington D.C. gossip queen in Mike Nichols’ “Heartburn,” however she did not get to totally flaunt her gaudy stuff till she performed Delia Deetz in Tim Burton’s field workplace hit “Beetlejuice.”

Catherine O’Hara’s Delia Deetz is a pretentious postmodern sculptor who plans to show the charming nation home she’s purchased along with her straight-laced husband Charles (Jeffrey Jones) into an Nineteen Eighties New Wave nightmare. O’Hara has a ball reveling in Deetz’s delusional existence (she mistakenly believes she’s an outstanding sculptor) and hurtles herself into the movie’s standout “Day-O (The Banana Boat Music)” scene with the identical aplomb she delivered to her characters on “SCTV.” For many moviegoers, O’Hara’s efficiency was a revelation. And she was so indelible on this function that many viewers have been surprised to see her play a really completely different type of mom in Chris Columbus’ “Home Alone” two years later.

“Home Alone” clearly belongs to Macauley Culkin’s Kevin McCallister and the buffoonish thieves performed by Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern. Nonetheless, O’Hara carves out the movie’s fullest character arc as Kate McCallister, who realizes that she’s not solely left Kevin at residence, however she’s additionally missed his emotional wants. It is laborious to think about “Home Alone” changing into the heartwarming Christmas viewing custom that it’s with out her efficiency.

O’Hara later reunited with Tim Burton by giving tender voice to Sally reverse Chris Sarandon/Danny Elfman’s Jack Skellington in “The Nightmare Earlier than Christmas” (which, in fact, was directed by Henry Selick), however the astonishing versatility that launched her profession on “SCTV” can be on full show when she joined Christopher Visitor’s performing troupe for a quartet of masterful, improvisation-heavy comedies. Certainly, Visitor’s movies “Ready for Guffman,” “Finest in Present,” “A Mighty Wind” and the massively underrated “For Your Consideration” introduced 4 deliriously humorous but palpably human sides of O’Hara.

Catherine O’Hara’s Sheila Albertson from “Ready for Guffman” must be immediately identifiable to anybody who’s participated in group productions, whereas her “Better of Present” character, Cookie Fleck, is an endearing Norwich terrier proprietor whose promiscuous previous places her husband Gerry (Eugene Levy) on edge. For “A Mighty Wind,” nevertheless, O’Hara dramatically shifts gears as Mickey Crabbe, one-half of the as soon as-in style people duo Mitch & Mickey, and her scenes with Levy’s Mickey are equal components hilarious and heartbreaking. Lastly, O’Hara’s “For Your Consideration” character, Marilyn Hack, permits her to riff on her Lola Heatherton persona, though there is a queasy desperation to the veteran actor that basically punches you within the coronary heart.

O’Hara continued to work in movie after that, however she discovered her subsequent wheelhouse function as former cleaning soap opera actor Moira Rose in “Schitt’s Creek” (a task she almost rejected) The CBC’s sitcom received off to a rocky begin, however as soon as the writing rose to the towering stage of the gifted forged, it grew to become a important darling, successful O’Hara her first and solely Primetime Emmy Award for Excellent Lead Actress in a Comedy Collection.

Lastly, in 2025, O’Hara gave two very completely different performances in Apple TV’s movie trade satire “The Studio” and HBO’s horror collection “The Final of Us.” She’d by no means been higher, and I used to be significantly wanting to see her return as ex-studio head Patty Leigh within the former. However greater than that, I dreamed of her reuniting along with her longtime display associate Levy. They have been inarguably one of many best comedy duos of all time, and I yearned for her to shock us as soon as once more with the type of magic solely she may conjure. It is unimaginable to sum up her greatness in a single phrase, however I will attempt: computer systems.