Catherine O'Hara

Early life

Catherine Anne O'Hara was born on March 4, 1954, in Toronto, and grew up there. Her family is Catholic and of Irish descent. She was the sixth of seven children, and a sister of musician and actress Mary Margaret O'Hara. She graduated from Burnhamthorpe Collegiate Institute in 1974, where she was taught by future Mississauga mayor Carolyn Parrish.

Career

O'Hara started her comedy career in 1974 as a cast member of The Second City in her hometown, Toronto. She was an understudy for Gilda Radner until Radner left for Saturday Night Live.

Two years later, this theatre troupe created the sketch comedy show SCTV, for which O'Hara became a regular performer. In the late 1970s, she provided voice-overs for a number of cartoons, work which would continue throughout her career. During a short period in the early 1980s when SCTV was in between network deals, she was hired to replace Ann Risley as Saturday Night Live was being retooled in 1981. However, she quit the show without appearing on air, choosing to go back to SCTV when the show signed on with NBC. She was long rumoured to have left SNL due to conflicts with volatile writer Michael O'Donoghue, but O'Hara denied these claims and said she had left the show due to her dislike for living in New York City.

O'Hara expanded her career on television in the mid-1970s. She appeared in a small sketch role as a maid in a 1975 Wayne and Shuster special on CBC. She appeared in the 1976 television film The Rimshots, the children's television series Coming Up Rosie for a season (1976–77), and television specials, such as Witch's Night Out and Intergalactic Thanksgiving. Her performances on SCTV, which began airing locally in Southern Ontario in the fall of 1976, earned her fame in Canada. The show gradually built up a national and then an international following in syndication. O'Hara left SCTV for a time, missing the 1980–81 season, but returned to the show in time for its pickup by the NBC television network in the US, when it became known as SCTV Network 90. O'Hara's work as a writer on the show earned her an Emmy Award for outstanding writing and two Emmy Award nominations. She left SCTV again prior to its fifth season in 1982, but did return for occasional guest appearances through the show's end in 1984. O'Hara appeared in a number of television series and television films and continued to work in television until her death. During the 1990s, she made guest appearances on Tales from the Crypt, Oh Baby, Morton & Hayes, and The Larry Sanders Show. She acted in and directed episodes of Dream On and The Outer Limits, the revival of the 1960s series of the same name.

O'Hara guest-starred on top-rated television series including Six Feet Under and Curb Your Enthusiasm. In May 2008, it was announced that she had signed on to star in the upcoming ABC dramedy Good Behavior. Her role in the 2010 television film Temple Grandin earned her three award nominations: a Primetime Emmy Award, a Satellite Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award.

O'Hara had a successful career in film. She made her feature debut in the 1980 film Double Negative, which also starred her SCTV co-stars John Candy, Eugene Levy, and Joe Flaherty. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, O'Hara appeared in many supporting roles, including Martin Scorsese's After Hours (1985) and Heartburn (1986). She appeared as Delia Deetz in the horror-comedy film Beetlejuice (1988). In 1990, O'Hara had roles in the films Dick Tracy and Betsy's Wedding. She starred as Kate McCallister in the blockbuster comedy film Home Alone (1990) and its sequel Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992). Also in 1992, O'Hara appeared in the comedy There Goes the Neighborhood.

O'Hara continued to appear in many films during the 1990s and the beginning of the 21st century. In 1994, she appeared in the comedy-drama film The Paper and the Western film Wyatt Earp. She received roles in four of Christopher Guest's mockumentary films, three of which earned her awards and nominations: Waiting for Guffman (1996), Best in Show (2000), A Mighty Wind (2003), and For Your Consideration (2006). Her role in 1999's The Life Before This won her a Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role. She appeared in the tenth series of the British version of Whose Line Is It Anyway? In 2004, she appeared with Jim Carrey in the black comedy film Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, and in 2006, she starred with Christina Ricci in the fantasy film Penelope. O'Hara served as a voice artist in a number of animated films, including Sally in The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), Bartok the Magnificent (1999), Chicken Little (2005), Over the Hedge (2006), Monster House (2006), Brother Bear 2 (2006), Where the Wild Things Are (2009), Frankenweenie (2012), The Addams Family (2019), Extinct (2021), Elemental (2023), and The Wild Robot (2024).

From 2015 to 2020, O'Hara co-starred as Moira Rose in the CBC sitcom Schitt's Creek, alongside Eugene Levy, with whom she had previously worked on TV, in films, and as a Second City cast member on stage in 1974. Her performance in Schitt's Creek earned her six Canadian Screen Awards for Best Lead Actress in a Comedy Series. She swept the five major TV awards for the sixth and final season, winning a TCA Award for Individual Achievement in Comedy, a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series, a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy, a Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Actress in a Comedy Series, and a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series.

She appeared as Dr. Georgina Orwell in the first season of the Netflix black comedy drama series A Series of Unfortunate Events, which premiered in 2017. Two of her episodes were directed by her husband Bo Welch, who served as production designer for the series. She was the only cast member from the 2004 film adaptation to be re-cast in the TV series as well. She appeared on the revival of another Canadian sketch comedy staple, The Kids in the Hall, in its second episode as Charlene, a friend of the Kids in the Hall. O'Hara reprised her role as Delia Deetz in the Beetlejuice sequel, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, in 2024.

In 2025, O'Hara had a main role in the Apple TV+ satirical comedy series The Studio. She guest-starred as Gail Lynden in the second season of the HBO post-apocalyptic drama series The Last of Us. She received Primetime Emmy Award nominations for both roles.

O'Hara's film appearances contributed to a cumulative worldwide box‑office gross of more than $4.3 billion.{{cite web

Personal life and death

In 1983, O'Hara told Rolling Stone that she was "pretty much a good Catholic girl at heart". She met production designer Bo Welch on the set of Beetlejuice in 1988, and the two married in 1992. They had two sons, born in 1994 and 1997.

O'Hara held dual Canadian and American citizenship. She was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2017 and was invested the following year. For 2021, she was named honorary mayor of Brentwood, Los Angeles.

She had dextrocardia with situs inversus, a condition where her heart and other major internal organs are reversed from their normal positions.

On January 30, 2026, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles Fire Department said that the department received a call from O'Hara's home address regarding a woman, believed to be her, not breathing. She was transported to a nearby hospital "in serious condition". O'Hara died later that day in Los Angeles at the age of 71. A family celebration of her life will be held privately.

Filmography

Film

Television

Music videos

Video games

References

References

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