Catherine O’Hara, award-winning actor of big and small screen, dies aged 71

Actor, known for roles in Schitt’s Creek, Home Alone and Best in Show, has died with cause of death unknown

Catherine O'Hara, at the premiere of 'The Wild Robot', at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. File Picture: Wikimedia Commons

Catherine O’Hara, the Canadian-American actor best known for Schitt’s Creek, Home Alone and Best in Show, has died at the age of 71.

Her manager confirmed the news to Variety. She died after a brief illness.

O’Hara started her comedy career in the 1970s and helped to create the Canadian sketch show SCTV. She broke into film in the 1980s with her first big screen credit in romantic comedy Nothing Personal with Donald Sutherland and in 1985 she had a role in Martin Scorsese’s black comedy After Hours.

In 1988, O’Hara starred in Tim Burton’s comedy horror Beetlejuice and later reprised the role in the 2024 sequel. O’Hara played Macaulay Culkin’s careless mother in smash hit 1990 comedy Home Alone, a role she also reprised for the 1992 sequel.

She began working with Christopher Guest in 1996, starring in mockumentary Waiting for Guffman and starred in three more of his films: Best in Show, A Mighty Wind and For Your Consideration.

On the small screen, she has roles in The Larry Sanders Show, Six Feet Under, Curb Your Enthusiasm and 30 Rock before she reunited with another Guest actor Eugene Levy for hit sitcom Schitt’s Creek.

The show, about a wealthy family who are forced to downsize, ran for six seasons and won O’Hara an Emmy award.

“I’m always drawn to characters who have no idea of the impression they’re making on other people,” she said in 2021. “We’re all delusional, really, and I love that about us humans and I love playing it.” 

O’Hara had recently been seen in the award-winning comedy series The Studio.