Catherine O'Hara, Emmy-winning comic actor of 'Schitt's Creek' and 'Home
Alone' fame, dies at 71
[January 31, 2026]
By ANDREW DALTON and JOCELYN NOVECK
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Catherine O’Hara, a gifted Canadian-born comic actor
and “SCTV” alum who starred as Macaulay Culkin’s harried mother in two
“Home Alone” movies and won an Emmy as the dramatically ditzy wealthy
matriarch Moira Rose in “Schitt’s Creek,” died Friday. She was 71.
O’Hara died at her home in Los Angeles “following a brief illness,”
according to a statement from her representatives at Creative Artists
Agency. Further details were not immediately available.
O’Hara’s career was launched with the Second City comedy group in
Toronto in the 1970s. It was there that she first worked with Eugene
Levy, who would become a lifelong collaborator — and her “Schitt’s
Creek” costar. The two would be among the original cast of the sketch
show “SCTV,” short for “Second City Television.” The series, which began
on Canadian TV in the 1970s and aired on NBC in the U.S., spawned a
legendary group of esoteric comedians that O’Hara would work with often,
including Martin Short, John Candy, Andrea Martin, Rick Moranis and Joe
Flaherty.
O'Hara would win her first Emmy for her writing on the show.
Her second, for best actress in a comedy series, came four decades
later, for “Schitt's Creek,” a career-capping triumph and the perfect
personification of her comic talents. The small CBC series created by
Levy and his son, Dan, about a wealthy family forced to live in a tiny
town would dominate the Emmys in its sixth and final season. It brought
O’Hara, always a beloved figure, a new generation of fans and put her at
the center of cultural attention.
She told The Associated Press that she pictured Moira, a former soap
opera star, as someone who had married rich and wanted to “remind
everyone that (she was) special, too.” With an exaggerated Mid-Atlantic
accent and obscure vocabulary, Moira spoke unlike anyone else, using
words like “frippet,” “pettifogging” and “unasinous,” to show her desire
to be different, O’Hara said. To perfect Moira’s voice, O’Hara would
pore through old vocabulary books, “Moira-izing” the dialogue even
further than what was already written.
O'Hara also won a Golden Globe and two SAG Awards for the role.
At first, Hollywood didn't entirely know what to do with O'Hara and her
scattershot style. She played oddball supporting characters in Martin
Scorsese's 1985 “After Hours” and Tim Burton's 1988 “Beetlejuice” — a
role she would reprise in the 2024 sequel.
She played it mostly straight as a horrified mother who accidentally
abandoned her child in the two “Home Alone” movies. The films were among
the biggest box office earners of the early 1990s and their Christmas
setting made them TV perennials. They allowed her moments of unironic
warmth that she didn't get often.
Her co-star Culkin was among those paying her tribute Friday.
“Mama, I thought we had time,” Culkin said on Instagram alongside an
image from “Home Alone” and a recent recreation of the same pose. “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.”
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Eugene Levy, from left, Annie Murphy, Daniel Levy and Catherine
O'Hara cast members in the series "Schitt's Creek" pose for a
portrait during the 2018 Television Critics Association Winter Press
Tour in Pasadena, Calif., on Jan. 14, 2018. (Photo by Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP,
File)
 Meryl Streep, who worked with O'Hara
in “Heartburn,” said in a statement that she “brought love and light
to our world, through whipsmart compassion for the collection of
eccentrics she portrayed.”
Roles in big Hollywood films didn't follow “Home
Alone,” but O'Hara would find her groove with the crew of improv
pros brought together by Christopher Guest for a series of
mockumentaries that began with 1996's “Waiting for Guffman” and
continued with 2000's “Best in Show,” 2003's “A Mighty Wind” and
2006's “For Your Consideration.”
“Best in Show” was the biggest hit and best-remembered film of the
series. She and Levy play married couple Gerry and Cookie Fleck, who
take their Norwich terrier to a dog show and constantly run into
Cookie's former lovers along the way.
“I am devastated,” Guest said in a statement to the AP. “We have
lost one of the comic giants of our age.”
Born and raised in Toronto, O’Hara was the sixth of seven children
in a Catholic family of Irish descent. She graduated from
Burnhamthorpe Collegiate Institute, an alternative high school. She
joined Second City in her early 20s, as an understudy to Gilda
Radner before Radner left for “Saturday Night Live.” (O’Hara would
briefly be hired for “SNL” but quit before appearing on air.)
Nearly 50 years later, her final roles would be as Seth Rogen’s
reluctant executive mentor and freelance fixer on “The Studio” and a
dramatic turn as therapist to Pedro Pascal and other dystopia
survivors on HBO's “The Last of Us.” Both earned her Emmy
nominations. She would get 10 in her career.
“Oh, genius to be near you,” Pascal said on Instagram. “Eternally
grateful. There is less light in my world.”
Earlier this month, Rogen shared a photo on Instagram of him and
O'Hara shooting the second season of “The Studio.”
O'Hara is survived by her husband, Bo Welch, sons Matthew and Luke,
and siblings Michael O’Hara, Mary Margaret O’Hara, Maureen Jolley,
Marcus O‘Hara, Tom O’Hara and Patricia Wallice.
___
Noveck reported from New York. AP Writers Lindsey Bahr, R.J. Rico
and Leanne Italie contributed.
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