Catherine O’Hara, the Toronto-born actor and comedian who got her start waitressing at the Second City comedy club and became a movie and TV legend with titles like “Home Alone” and “Schitt’s Creek,” has died at the age of 71.
The Associated Press reported that O’Hara died at her home in Los Angeles “following a brief illness,” according to a statement from her agency, Creative Artists Agency. Further details were not immediately available.
O’Hara’s profile had never been higher since starring in the Canadian TV comedy “Schitt’s Creek.” The series, which ran from 2015 to 2020, swept the comedy categories at the 2020 Primetime Emmy Awards, earning O’Hara the trophy for outstanding lead actress.
It was her second Emmy but only her first for acting; she won in 1982 as a writer of the legendary Canadian sketch comedy series “SCTV.”
O’Hara was back in Emmys contention this past September as a double nominee: for best supporting actress for comedy juggernaut “The Studio” and for guest actress in the drama “The Last of Us.”
Her “Studio” role, playing the former head of a movie company alongside fellow Canadian Seth Rogen, also earned O’Hara a 2026 Golden Globe nomination.
Back in 2023, when she won the Canadian Screen Awards’ Academy Icon Award, O’Hara marvelled at all the attention “Schitt’s Creek” had brought her.
She had recently attended a Dior fashion show in Paris.
“This was the first time I’d ever been invited to go to Paris, first (time) to get dressed in some beautiful, beautiful clothes, get flown to Paris, put in this amazingly beautiful hotel, and attend the fashion show and sit between Daniel (Levy, her “Schitt’s Creek” co-star) and Anna Wintour,” O’Hara said in an interview with the Star.
“And then from there, my husband and I went to Abu Dhabi for the Forbes 30/50 global women’s summit, where we got to meet Gloria Steinem and Billie Jean King and Hillary Clinton.”
O’Hara may have been star-struck at the company she was keeping, but she made an indelible mark on the entertainment world going back to the 1970s, when she joined a troupe of fellow Canadian comedians in the irreverent “SCTV.”
In that comedy series, O’Hara created memorable characters like lounge singer Lola Heatherton and the risqué Dusty Towne, and impersonated celebrities, including a stand-out Katherine Hepburn.
O’Hara stayed with “SCTV” throughout the ’70s and into the early ’80s, before going on to beloved roles like the wife and mother in “Beetlejuice” and the harried mom who lives her child behind in “Home Alone.”
She was a staple of Christopher Guest’s mockumentary movies, including “Waiting for Guffman,” “Best in Show,” “A Mighty Wind” – in which she and Eugene Levy played folksinging ex-lovers — and “For Your Consideration.”
Pop crooner Michael Bublé posted on X that “heartbroken doesn’t even begin to cover it” about O’Hara’s passing.
“She wasn’t just a legendary artist, actor and comedian. She was an ambassador for Canada in the truest sense: brilliant, fearless, deeply original, and so full of humanity,” he said on X. “As an artist, she inspired me more than she’ll ever know. She set the bar for what it means to represent your country with excellence and grace and all without ever losing warmth or humility.”
Director Ron Howard called O’Hara’s death “shattering news,” in a post on X. “What a wonderful person, artist and collaborator,” he wrote. “She was simply growing more brilliant with each year.”
Comedian Tom Green called her “one of the greatest Canadian comedy icons of all time” on X.
“She’s kept me and millions of others entertained throughout my lifetime — from her brilliant work on SCTV, to Home Alone, Beetlejuice, Best in Show, Schitt’s Creek, and so many other films and television classics. Her characters brought so much joy and laughter to the world,” Green wrote.
“Saturday Night Live” alum Kevin Nealon posted about O’Hara’s comedy legacy on X, saying she “changed how so many of us understand comedy and humanity.“O’Hara hosted a 1991 episode of “SNL” when Nealon was in the cast, and they both voiced characters for the animated series “Glenn Martin, DDS.”
“From the chaos and heart of Home Alone to the unforgettable precision of Moira Rose in Schitt’s Creek, she created characters we’ll rewatch again and again,” Nealon added.
O’Hara told the Star her career was the result of happenstance rather than planning.
“I’ve never had this kind of foresight or ambition. I’ve lived in the moment,” she said. “But, you know, it makes me realize how lucky I am, and very grateful to still be working and still be working with someone like Eugene (Levy), who I met on my very first job.”
That job was waitressing at the Second City in Toronto, where Levy was part of the cast.
But it was another legendary female comedian who sparked O’Hara to seek her own career in comedy.
Late American comedian Gilda Radner was dating O’Hara’s older brother, Marcus, and so was a visitor at the O’Hara home. And Catherine got to watch her perform at Second City and in a now revered 1972 production of “Godspell” in Toronto.
“I never would have seen being silly, funny, playing characters, doing impersonations, which I did with my friends and family, as maybe a possible job, let alone a career, without Gilda,” O’Hara said.
O’Hara followed Radner to Second City where, besides waitressing, she understudied Radner and Rosemary Radcliffe before replacing Gilda in the company when the latter left for New York to become a founding cast members of “Saturday Night Live.” (Radner died of ovarian cancer in 1989.)
Second City, O’Hara told the Star, became her “university of comedy.”
It was also where she made contact with the comedian who would play a formative role throughout her career, particularly in the latter stages.
Eugene Levy, who went on to become O’Hara’s “SCTV” cast mate and her co-star in the Guest mockumentaries, had to talk her into doing “Schitt’s Creek,” which he co-created with his son, Daniel.
But Moira Rose, the overly dramatic former soap opera star forced to move into a rundown motel in a small town with her husband (Levy) and their two kids, became O’Hara’s defining role — beloved for everything from her affected way of speaking to the outrageous designer fashions she continued to wear, despite the family’s straitened circumstances.
In an interview with the Star in 2019, O’Hara said she loved Moira and joked that she would “defend her to the death.”
“I really think (Moira is) making the best of a bad situation and being totally courteous to everyone, as courteous as a human being can be under the circumstances,” O’Hara said when it was suggested that Moira was selfish. “At the same time I think she’s been a very good wife, not bringing (their reduced circumstances) up to Johnny (Levy) every day, which I might do in real life.”
She added, “I feel so grateful to be getting a chance to still work hard and be ridiculous at my age.”
Patty Leigh, the character O’Hara played in multiple Emmy-winning comedy “The Studio,” was a very different character than Moira: pragmatic, canny and not at all flashy. After being replaced by Seth Rogen’s character as studio head she carves out a new niche for herself as a producer.
“I just went by the script and how these things would make me feel if I ever was in that kind of position of power and lost it overnight, and then tried to scrooch my way back in and get to do something I really dreamed of doing,” O’Hara told Star writer Max Gao last year.
This is a developing story.
