There are things you realize when you sit down to write an obituary for a talented person who has died. In most cases, it’s something like, “I did not realize they’ve been around this long,” or, “I forgot they were in that.” Both of those descriptions certainly fit Catherine O’Hara, but what most came to mind while looking over her 50-year resume is that Catherine O’Hara was, for the last half-century, a comedy benchmark.
Starting with SCTV way back in 1976, the red-headed Canadian has one of the finest and funniest CVs you will ever find. Along with her fellow countrymen and women, Joe Flaherty, Andrea Martin, Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas, and John Candy, was the great white north’s answer to Saturday Night Live and sketch comedy. O’Hara wasn’t just an adept performer; she was also a distinguished, Emmy-winning writer. From 1976 to 1983, O’Hara cut her comic teeth with some of the brightest minds in comedy, and for the remainder of her long career, proved to be the most accomplished of the group. Yes, I know that is no small statement.
But let’s take in the evidence:
Once O’Hara’s run on SCTV came to a close, she quickly started picking up supporting parts in notable films made by auteurs: Martin Scorsese’s paranoid comedy After Hours (1985), Mike Nichols’ divorce dramedy Heartburn (1986) with Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep, Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice (1988), and Warren Beatty’s vastly underrated Dick Tracy (1990). 1990 would also mark O’Hara’s cinematic breakthrough as the absent-minded mom in Home Alone. For many an actor, playing the mother of a boy (played by Macaulay Culkin), you forgot to bring with you on your Christmas vacation would not only be a thankless role, but one that might have resulted in derision. Yet somehow, O’Hara’s exasperated mother almost, somehow, reads as feminist. She’s a woman with too much on her shoulders, and even if she left her prepubescent son to fend off two wolves (in the form of Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern), you couldn’t hate her.
Home Alone also presented O’Hara with the opportunity to play against her SCTV partner, John Candy (as Gus Polinski, “polka king of the Midwest”). As funny as O’Hara so often was, when she trades lines with Candy, she showcases an almost effortless ability to play the “straight man,” setting Candy up numerous times in their relatively brief scene together. Even so, despite not getting the money lines in the sequence, O’Hara’s delivery and her facial expressions elicit laughs of their own. O’Hara reprised her role as Culkin’s mom in Home Alone 2, a successful but not nearly as memorable sequel.
1993 brought one of O’Hara’s most memorable voice-over roles as Sally/Shock in The Nightmare Before Christmas (produced by Tim Burton). O’Hara’s expressive voice and intonation are often heard in animated films like Elemental, Monster House, The Addams Family, Frankenweenie, and Spike Jonze’s wonderful live-action adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are.
Two of my favorite films featuring O’Hara came in 1994: Ron Howard’s journalism dramedy The Paper, and Lawrence Kasdan’s Wyatt Earp. While neither film was particularly well reviewed (especially Earp), O’Hara distinguished herself in both. Wyatt Earp gave her a chance to show off her dramatic chops, and she did so with aplomb.
Aside from SCTV-related projects, O’Hara’s strongest artistic affiliation is with Christopher Guest and his memorable series of mockumentaries. Beginning with Waiting for Guffman in 1996, O’Hara would appear in a total of four Guest projects, also including Best in Show (2000), A Mighty Wind (2003), and For Your Consideration (2006). O’Hara scored an Independent Spirit nomination for best leading actress in a comedy for A Mighty Wind, but it was her hysterical performance as Cookie Fleck in Best in Show that takes the award for Best in Guest for me. As one half of a middle-aged couple, O’Hara played a woman with a randy past who was consistently running into men she had “spent time with” in front of her beleaguered husband (the wonderful Eugene Levy). As former partner after former partner rear their heads, O’Hara shamelessly recalls each and every encounter in a manner that emasculates Mr. Fleck. O’Hara was an absolute master of awkward comedy, and never has her gift been better represented than in Best in Show.
In the middle of her decade-long (1996-2006) Guest run, O’Hara had a memorable recurring role in Six Feet Under, and appeared in the modestly successful adaptation of A Series of Unfortunate Events. The pace of memorable work by O’Hara slowed after For Your Consideration, but Sam Mendes’ underrated comedy Away We Go in 2009 offered a plum supporting part, and the TV movie Temple Grandin (starring Clare Danes) received fantastic reviews, not only for its star, but also for O’Hara as the aunt of the title character. Temple Grandin is a true-life story about an autistic woman (Danes) who invented a more humane method for slaughtering cows. As you might guess, Temple Grandin is not a comedy. O’Hara is terrific as the family member whose ranch the title character visits frequently, sparking her imagination. The film was nominated for a whopping fifteen Emmys and won seven. O’Hara was among the film’s nominations, in the category of Best Supporting Actress.
Five years would pass before O’Hara’s next triumph, and it would be a rather unlikely one. Produced by Dan and Eugene Levy for Canadian television, Schitt’s Creek (2015-20) was a sitcom about a wealthy family who suddenly became poor(ish). As the matriarch of the clan, O’Hara played Moira Rose, a former soap opera actress with a massive ego and a faux upper-crust accent that was responsible for more laughs and grins than one could count. Schitt’s Creek is one of the most unusual success stories in recent television history. Revered by critics, the series was lightly viewed for its first three seasons on the nearly invisible Pop network. Picked up by Netflix for seasons 4-6, the show experienced a huge uptick in popularity, resulting in its final season scoring Emmy wins for Outstanding Comedy Series, and in all four major acting categories—a first for any series, comedy or drama. One of those wins was for O’Hara as Best Leading Actress.
After Schitt’s Creek’s final season, O’Hara’s next four years were relatively quiet until she reprised her role in the hit sequel to Beetlejuice (Beetlejuice Beetlejuice) for Burton in 2024. Last year, O’Hara soared in two distinctively different roles: one as a survivor of a plague/zombie apocalypse in The Last of Us, and the other in the manic Apple TV comedy The Studio, starring Seth Rogen. O’Hara’s parts in the two projects couldn’t have been more in opposition. In The Last of Us, O’Hara is patient, dark, and sneakily droll. In The Studio, she is amped up to an eleven. Remarkably, she was equally adept on both shows, earning Emmy nominations as Guest Actress – Drama in the former, and Supporting Actress in a comedy for the latter.
O’Hara has been with us for so long in projects critically feted, wildly popular, and sometimes both, that one can be forgiven for taking her for granted. After all, in her final full year on earth, she was vibrant and at the top of her game in two of the most visible shows on television. O’Hara amassed ten Emmy nominations in her career (winning two), seven SAG nominations (winning twice), and two Golden Globe nods (winning for Schitt’s Creek). O’Hara was one of the most critically acclaimed comedic actresses of her generation. It’s no great stretch to refer to her as a “national treasure.” That term is often overused, but not when it comes to Catherine O’Hara.
The last time I saw O’Hara on screen was in Colin Hanks’ lovely documentary, I Like Me, about John Candy’s career from last year. In the film, O’Hara is frequently seen reminiscing sweetly, and sometimes painfully, over her memories of her longtime friend and frequent collaborator. Goodness, decency, and humility come across in every word she speaks. She was grand in so many ways. More than we probably appreciated while she was here.
Ain’t it always the way?
Catherine O’Hara died on January 30, 2026. She was 71 years old.
