Catherine O’Hara, of ‘Home Alone,’ ‘Schitt’s Creek’ and ‘SCTV’ fame, dies at 71

The actress Catherine O’Hara, a star of “Schitt’s Creek,” in Los Angeles on Dec. 27, 2019. O’Hara, the comedian best known for her roles in “Home Alone,” “Schitt’s Creek” and “Beetlejuice,” and as a member of the influential Canadian sketch comedy series “S.C.T.V.,” has died, the New York Times reported on Jan. 30, 2026. She was 71. (Ryan Pfluger/The New York Times)

By ALEX WILLIAMS and RYLEE KIRK

Catherine O’Hara, the Emmy Award-winning comic actress who endeared herself to audiences, blending a maternal Everywoman quality with a sly touch of the surreal, as showcased in blockbusters like the “Home Alone” films as well as offbeat fare like the hit TV series “Schitt’s Creek,” died Friday at her home in Los Angeles. She was 71.

Creative Artists Agency, which represented her, confirmed her death in a statement, which did not cite a cause, saying only that she had been briefly ill.

A native of Toronto, O’Hara began her climb to fame as an understudy to Gilda Radner with the Second City, the improvisational comedy troupe. Second City gave rise to the acclaimed Canadian sketch comedy show “SCTV.” Her co-stars included John Candy, Rick Moranis and Eugene Levy.

Levy and O’Hara often functioned as something of a de facto comedy team over the years, most recently on “Schitt’s Creek,” the Canadian television sitcom created by Levy and his son Dan Levy.

The series, which ran for six seasons starting in 2015, provided O’Hara with a late-career renaissance.

The two also appeared as a married couple in “Best in Show,” the 2000 mockumentary sendup of high-end dog shows directed by Christopher Guest.

O’Hara and Levy stole scenes in similar Guest vehicles such as “Waiting for Guffman” (1996), about the production of a small-time stage musical; “A Mighty Wind,” a lampoon of the folk music circuit; and “For Your Consideration” (2006), about a schlocky, small-time film that gets Oscar buzz.

O’Hara’s biggest screen achievement came with the 1990 Christmas film “Home Alone,” directed by Chris Columbus and written by John Hughes. Playing a harried suburban matriarch trying to shepherd her brood on a trip to Paris, she discovers mid-flight that she has forgotten her youngest, Kevin (Macaulay Culkin), who spends the bulk of the film enjoying freedoms rarely granted a child, when not fending off a pair of bumbling burglars.

O’Hara had no inkling that the movie would go into heavy rotation for decades as a Yuletide staple.

O’Hara was earlier cast in “Beetlejuice” (1988), directed by Tim Burton. That film became a cult favorite, exposing O’Hara to an audience beyond the niche world of improvisational and sketch comedy, and it set her up for a film and television career that would last for nearly another four decades.

Catherine O’Hara was born in Toronto on March 4, 1954.

After the last iteration of “SCTV” ended in 1984, O’Hara had a memorably off-kilter turn as an ice cream vendor in the movie “After Hours” (1985), directed by Martin Scorsese, and played a socially connected journalist in “Heartburn” (1986), directed by Mike Nichols.

She won a prime-time Emmy in 1982 for writing on “SCTV,” and in 2020 won her first acting Emmy for portraying the reality-challenged Moira Rose on “Schitt’s Creek.” She also won a Golden Globe and Screen Actor’s Guild Award for that role.

Her survivors include her husband, Bo Welch; her sons, Matthew and Luke; and her siblings, Michael O’Hara, Mary Margaret O’Hara, Maureen Jolley, Marcus O‘Hara, Tom O’Hara and Patricia Wallice.