Catherine O’Hara, the two-time Emmy Award-winning actor who starred in “Home Alone” and “Best in Show” and who made an impressive comeback late in her career on “Schitt’s Creek,” has died, her manager has confirmed to Variety. She was 71 years old.
O’Hara died Friday at her home in Los Angeles after a short illness, according to her agency CAA.
O’Hara’s Hollywood career spanned five decades, beginning with the Canadian sketch comedy series Second City Television, which he co-created with Eugene Levy, for which he won his first Emmy Award and was nominated four times. O’Hara went on to appear in films such as “After Hours,” “Beetlejuice” and the first two “Home Alone” films, where she played the mother of Macaulay Culkin’s character, Kevin. Mr. O’Hara remained close friends with Mr. Culkin and honored him at the 2023 Walk of Fame ceremony.
She was a frequent collaborator of Christopher Guest and appeared in his mockumentary films Best in Show, For Your Consideration, Waiting for Guffman, and A Mighty Wind. And she had voice roles in popular animated productions such as “The Nightmare Before Christmas” and “Chicken Little.” O’Hara’s recent credits include the legendary sequel Beetlejuice, in which she reprized her role as Delia Dietz, and the Apple action film Argyle.
O’Hara experienced a career resurgence in her 60s, playing wealthy housewife Moira Rose on the CBC sitcom Schitt’s Creek, opposite Eugene, Dan Levy, and Annie Murphy. She won her second Emmy for “Schitt’s Creek” and went on to land other major TV roles, including HBO’s “The Last of Us” and Apple TV’s “The Studio.” In the latter, O’Hara played a high-profile Hollywood executive who was thrown out by the studio. The second season of Seth Rogen’s showbiz satire recently began filming.
In an interview with Variety about 2025’s “The Studio,” O’Hara reflected on how Hollywood has changed over the course of her career. “It’s probably a much more sensitive business now than it used to be,” she says. “The Internet and streaming must have opened up a world of wonderful and terrifying possibilities to people,” O’Hara said, and despite “The Studio’s” scathing disdain for Hollywood’s executive culture, “most people are trying to do a good job, they want to do it, and most people want to be entertained.”
O’Hara was born in Toronto but became a beloved figure in Los Angeles. She was named Honorary Mayor of Brentwood in 2021.
She is survived by her husband, production designer Beau Welch, sons Matthew and Luke, and siblings Michael O’Hara, Mary Margaret O’Hara, Maureen Joly, Marcus O’Hara, Tom O’Hara and Patricia Wallis.
