:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(749x0:751x2)/catherine-ohara-home-alone-013125-efe8e1830a1849c582acd23b199ec16b.jpg?w=1200&resize=1200,0&ssl=1 "Remembering Catherine O’Hara, brilliant star of ‘Home Alone’ and ‘Schitt’s Creek’")
Catherine O’Hara, the radiant actress whose singular comedic delivery helped elevate movies and TV shows like “Beetlejuice,” “Home Alone” and “Schitt’s Creek” to cult classic status, has died. She was 71.
A statement from CAA, the agency that represented O’Hara, said the actress died Friday “at her home in Los Angeles following a brief illness.”
O’Hara got her start at Second City in her native Canada, before turning to film, where she brought to life two of cinema’s most memorable mothers.
In 1988’s “Beetlejuice,” she played Delia Deetz, a devilish mom who made no secret of her love for “Prince Valium” and turned lip syncing into an art form. She reprised the role in 2024’s “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.”
In 1990’s “Home Alone,” O’Hara turned a one-word movie line (“KEVIN!”) into pop culture history. As a frazzled mom of five who left one of her brood (Macaulay Culkin) at home during their holiday trip to France, O’Hara brought heart and humor to the now classic Christmas movie. A sequel was released in 1992.
Just two years ago, O’Hara showed up to the Walk of Fame ceremony as her on-screen son Culkin received his star.
“Thank you for including me, your fake mom who left you home alone not once, but twice, to share in this happy occasion,” O’Hara told him. “I’m so proud of you.”
On Friday, Culkin paid tribute to O’Hara on social media, addressing her as “mama.” “I thought we had time,” he wrote. “I wanted more. I wanted to sit in a chair next to you. I heard you but I had so much more to say. I love you.”
“Home Alone” director Chris Columbus said he was “stunned and heartbroken” by O’Hara’s passing and praised the “profound emotional depth” she brought to the movie.
“What most people don’t realize is that Catherine carries the weight of 50% of that film. The movie simply would not work without her extraordinary performance,” he told CNN in a statement.
He added: “I will miss her greatly. Yet there is a small sense of comfort, realizing that two of the finest human beings I’ve ever known, Catherine and John Candy, are together again, brilliantly improvising, making each other laugh.”
Candy had a part in the movie, playing a traveling musician whose band helps O’Hara’s character get home to her child.
After the success of “Home Alone,” she turned to collaborating with director Christopher Guest, starring in many of his iconic mockumentaries, including “Waiting for Guffman” (1996) and “Best in Show” (2000).
“I am devastated,” Guest told CNN in a statement. “We have lost one of the comic giants of our age.”
In those films, O’Hara worked often alongside Eugene Levy, becoming a signature duo who went on to co-star in the acclaimed series “Schitt’s Creek” together. As wayward posh actress Moira Rose, O’Hara’s one-liners were meme gold and earned her critical praise.
O’Hara won an Emmy in 2020 during a Covid-era ceremony that saw stars masked up and celebrating while scattered across the globe, with the action captured on 130 dispatched cameras.
In her speech, O’Hara thanked creators Eugene and Dan Levy for “bestowing me the opportunity to play a woman of a certain age, my age, who gets to fully be her ridiculous self.”
On Friday evening, Dan Levy wrote on Instagram that O’Hara and his father spent over 50 years collaborating, so he counted her as “extended family before she ever played my family.”
“It’s hard to imagine a world without her in it. I will cherish every funny memory I was fortunate enough to make with her,” he wrote.
O’Hara also won a Golden Globe for her performance on the show in 2021.
“Moira’s way more interesting than I am,” she once told the New York Times. “And the fun thing about her was that she was an actor, so I could, once in a while, get to perform or get to do an accent. Once you’ve had that in your life, it’s really hard to give up.”
Most recently, O’Hara played a fallen executive in “The Studio,” for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award. She also appeared in a critical role in Season 2 of HBO Max’s “The Last of Us,” for which she was also nominated for an Emmy.
Star Pedro Pascal called O’Hara a “genius” on a tribute posted to his Instagram page.
“There is less light in my world, this lucky world that had you, will keep you, always,” he wrote.
O’Hara is survived by her husband Bo Welch and sons Matthew and Luke.
A private celebration of life will be held by the family, according to her agency.
Catherine O’Hara discovered rare medical condition during routine doctor visit with husband over 20 years ago
Catherine O’Hara, who died on Jan. 30, had dextrocardia situs inversus, where the heart is positioned on the right side of the chest instead of the left
Catherine O’Hara was diagnosed with a rare medical condition before her death.
During a Virtual Happy Hour with Kathryn Hall in 2020, O’Hara — who died on Jan. 30 at age 71 — opened up about her dextrocardia situs inversus diagnosis and explained how she discovered the condition much later in life.
Dextrocardia is a rare congenital (present at birth) heart defect in which the heart is positioned on the right side of the chest instead of its normal position on the left side. Dextrocardia on its own does not usually cause problems, but it tends to occur with other conditions that can have serious effects on the heart, lungs and other vital organs, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine. The condition can also cause other organs to be on the opposite side of the body.
It is unknown if dextrocardia situs inversus contributed to O’Hara’s death.
Catherine O’Hara died on Jan. 30. She was 71. (Unique Nicole/WireImage)
“I’m a freak, yeah!” said O’Hara, who learned about her diagnosis more than 20 years ago while visiting the doctor with her husband Bo Welch.
“I love Western medicine, I just don’t want to be a part of it. But I had to get a TB test when our youngest was in co-op nursery school and I went to my husband’s doctor, and he said let’s do some baseline tests, and one of them was an EKG,” she explained.
“He calls us into his office and says, ‘You’re the first one I’ve met!'” O’Hara said of the doctor revealing her diagnosis. “I don’t even know the name, because I don’t want to know the name. Something cardio-inversus. And then dextrocardia and something-inversus. People are going to think I’m so ignorant not to know this, but I kind of don’t want to know. Because I didn’t know before that.”
O’Hara was diagnosed with dextrocardia situs inversus 20 years ago. (Alamy)
“I’m one of seven kids,” O’Hara continued. “My parents were already gone, had left the world by that time. Never heard anything about this with anyone else. We’re driving home, and I think, ‘I wonder about my other siblings, if they know where their hearts are.'”
“When the doctor told us that my heart was on the right side and my organs were flipped, my husband immediately said, ‘No, her head’s on backwards,'” she recalled.
The beloved actress reportedly suffered from a “brief illness” before her death. (Stefanie Keenan/VF25/WireImage for Vanity Fair)
O’Hara died after a “brief illness.”
“Prolific multi-award-winning actress, writer, and comedian Catherine O’Hara died today at her home in Los Angeles following a brief illness,” her reps confirmed to Fox News Digital.
The Los Angeles Fire Department also confirmed to Fox News Digital that first responders were dispatched to O’Hara’s Brentwood home at approximately 5 a.m. on Friday. She was transported to a local hospital, where she was listed in serious condition. The beloved actress was pronounced dead several hours later.
Fox News Digital’s Stephanie Giang-Paunon contributed to this post.
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