Catherine O’Hara, the virtuosic comedic actor best known for her performances in the Christmas classic “Home Alone,” the mockumentary “Best in Show” and the cult-hit sitcom “Schitt’s Creek,” died Friday, according to her manager.
She was 71.
Marc Gurvitz, her manager, did not specify a cause of death.
In an entertainment career spanning more than 50 years, O’Hara excelled in playing characters who were cartoonishly larger than life but recognizably human, theatrically vain but ultimately endearing.
She got her start in Canadian sketch comedy, performing and writing on the landmark show “Second City Television,” or “SCTV,” before ascending to Hollywood stardom with roles in high-profile movies like Tim Burton’s “Beetlejuice.”
She frequently collaborated with mockumentary pioneer Christopher Guest, becoming a key player in his ensemble of expert improvisers. She appeared in Guest’s beloved films “Waiting for Guffman,” “Best in Show” and “A Mighty Wind.”
In recent years, O’Hara enjoyed a late-career renaissance and introduced herself to a new generation of television viewers as the daffy former soap opera star Moira Rose on “Schitt’s Creek,” a defining role that earned her an Emmy Award in 2020.
In her acceptance speech, she thanked the show’s co-creators — the father-son duo, Eugene and Dan Levy, for “the opportunity to play a woman of a certain age, my age, who gets to fully be her ridiculous self.”
She also joined the supporting casts of the acclaimed Apple TV+ show business satire “The Studio” and the post-apocalyptic HBO drama “The Last of Us,” adapted from a popular video game franchise of the same name.
In 2021, O’Hara received the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award, the most prestigious honor bestowed on Canadian performers. “She is a cultural trailblazer whose international success has inspired many artists and helped pave the way for the next generation of women in comedy,” her citation read.
Catherine Anne O’Hara was born March 4, 1954, in Toronto. She launched her acting career with the famed Second City comedy troupe, a formative experience she later described as her personal “university.”
“I learned writing, scene structure, character development,” O’Hara was later quoted as saying. “Everything I’m still tapping into, and I was fortunate to meet all those wonderful, talented people with whom I still get to work.”
O’Hara and her other Second City peers — including future stars such as John Candy, Eugene Levy, Rick Moranis and Martin Short — brought their sketch talents to television with the influential “SCTV” series, effectively Canada’s answer to NBC’s “Saturday Night Live.”
“SCTV” brought O’Hara her first Emmy Award, for outstanding writing, and served as her entrée to Hollywood.