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.
O’Hara died at her home in Los Angeles “following a brief illness,” according to a statement from her agency, CAA. 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.
During a 2023 interview with the Star, 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.
“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 Katharine Hepburn.
O’Hara stayed with “SCTV” throughout the ’70s and into the early ’80s, before moving on to beloved roles in “Beetlejuice” and the harried mother who lives her child (Macaulay Culkin) 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.”
“SCTV” producer Andrew Alexander was one of the earliest champions of O’Hara’s talent when she joined his Second City comedy theatre hotspot in the mid-1970s. In a Friday interview with the Star, Alexander said her commitment to building characters was evident from the start, pointing to her streetwise persona, Moneypenny, as one of the early memorable bits on the improv comedy scene.
“She had such an instinct to play it as real as possible,” he said in a phone interview. “She hadn’t had a ton of training; she just had it. Every show that would go by on stage, you’d see her confidence increase.” Alexander said O’Hara’s sincerity and self-deprecating humour never faded as her popularity took off. “That Irish Catholic always shone through,” he added.
Tributes began rolling in for O’Hara on Friday afternoon.
Macaulay Culkin, who starred alongside O’Hara in two “Home Alone” movies, posted photos of the duo on Instagram with the caption, “Mama. I thought we had time. I wanted more. I wanted to sit in a chair next to you. I heard you but I had so much more to say. I love you. I’ll see you later.”
On X, Prime Minister Mark Carney posted on X: “Canada has lost a legend.”
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.”
Pierre Poilievre posted, in part, on X: “Through decades of unforgettable performances from SCTV to Home Alone to Schitt’s Creek, she brought joy and laughter to generations of Canadians and showed the best of Canadian talent to audiences around the world. Her talent and warmth left a lasting mark on our culture.”
On X, Justin Trudeau called O’Hara “a beloved Canadian icon with a rare gift for comedy and heart.”
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 cocreated 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 very different than Moira: pragmatic, canny and not at all flashy. After being replaced by Seth Rogen’s character as Hollywood studio head, Patty carves out a 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.
“The Studio” is a comedy about Hollywood written by Canadians Rogen and Evan Goldberg.
O’Hara said “Canadians have an extra special sense of humour … because they’re able to make fun of themselves,” O’Hara added. “The greatest gift is to be able to laugh at yourself.”
