Catherine O’Hara, beloved for her roles in “Schitt’s Creek,” “Home Alone,” “Best in Show” and countless other comedies has died, her team confirmed to HuffPost.
O’Hara, a two-time Emmy Award winner, was 71. Her manager could not confirm a cause or time of death.
The Toronto-born actor and screenwriter most recently starred in television hits “The Last of Us” and “The Studio.” In a 2019 Vulture interview, O’Hara said she never wanted to be pigeonholed.
“There are actresses who want to stick to one certain way, and there are actors like me who want to do a bunch of different characters,” she said. “Don’t fence me in! Don’t lock me down! I want to do different things! I don’t know who I am!”
O’Hara got her start in 1974 performing with The Second City, an improv comedy troupe with an outpost in Toronto, then joined the group’s spinoff production SCTV. She was later hired at “Saturday Night Live,” but quit the show before ever appearing on air.
She went on to appear as iconic on-screen moms in 1988’s “Beetlejuice” and the first two “Home Alone” movies in 1990 and 1992 and was a frequent collaborator with Christopher Guest on his mockumentary films, including 1996’s “Waiting for Guffman” and 2000’s “Best in Show.”
But to many fans, O’Hara is best known as Moira Rose, the eccentric ex-TV star sentenced to life in a rundown, rural Canadian motel on CBC’s “Schitt’s Creek,” which ran from 2015 to 2020. Her turn as oddball matriarch with a fondness for wigs nabbed her best comedic actress wins at the 2020 Emmys and 2021 Golden Globes.
“I’m nowhere near as interesting as Moira,” she joked to Vanity Fair in 2020.
Dan Levy ― who created and starred in the show with his dad, Eugene Levy ― commended his on-screen mom for challenging Hollywood’s narrow ideas around casting older women.
“Networks down the line have pigeonholed or diminished the idea of what an older female character can be,” he told the magazine at the time. “So to be able to be a part of this moment for Catherine O’Hara at this point in her life and show the world that there is nothing sexier, nothing more hysterical than a woman over 50 — that was the joy. Because you’re dealing with a caliber of actor who is so seasoned and so willing to make choices that are outside people’s comfort zones. I think that’s what Moira Rose is a result of: Catherine having the runway to go for it.”
She and Eugene Levy, who played her husband on “Schitt’s Creek,” became lifelong collaborators after meeting in the 1970s, working with each other at Second City and co-starring in three of Guest’s films together before reprising their partnership as Moira and Johnny Rose.
O’Hara also maintained a friendship with her “Home Alone” co-star Macaulay Culkin, who paid an emotional tribute to her on Instagram.
“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,” he wrote.
O’Hara is survived by her husband and their two sons.
Take a look back at some moments from O’Hara’s storied career:
Sara Boboltz contributed to this report.