LOS ANGELES (ANDREW DALTON and JOCELYN NOVECK), January 30: Catherine O'Hara, a gifted Canadian-born comic actor and SCTV alum who starred as Macaulay Culkin's harried mother in two Home Alone movies and won an Emmy as the dramatically ditzy wealthy matriarch Moira Rose in Schitt's Creek, died Friday (January 30). She was 71. O'Hara died at her home in Los Angeles "following a brief illness," according to a statement from her agency, Creative Artists Agency. Further details were not immediately available.

Catherine O'Hara Career

O'Hara's career was launched at the Second City in Toronto in the in 1970s. It was there that she first worked with Eugene Levy, who would become a lifelong collaborator — and her Schitt's Creek costar. The two would be among the original cast of the sketch show SCTV, short for Second City Television. The series, which began on Canadian TV in the 1970s and aired on NBC in the US in the early '80s, spawned a legendary group of esoteric comedians including Martin Short, John Candy, Andrea Martin, Rick Moranis and Joe Flaherty.

Catherine O'Hara Filmography

Hollywood didn't entirely know what to do with O'Hara and her scattershot style. She played oddball supporting characters in Martin Scorsese's 1985 After Hours and Tim Burton's 1988 Beetlejuice — a role she would reprise in the 2024 sequel. She played it mostly straight as a horrified mother who accidentally abandoned her child in the two Home Alone movies. The films were among the biggest box office earners of the early 1990s and their Christmas setting made them TV perennials. Christmas Movies in Hollywood: From ‘Home Alone’, ‘A Christmas Carol’ to ‘Love Actually’, 5 Holiday Films to Watch on December 25 (Watch Videos).

O'Hara would find her groove with the crew of improv pros brought together by Christopher Guest for a series of mockumentaries that began with 1996's Waiting for Guffman and continued with 2000's Best in Show, 2003's A Might Wind and 2006's For Your Consideration.

Catherine O'Hara on 'Schitt's Creek'

Schitt's Creek would be a career-capping triumph and the perfect personification of her comic talents. The small show created by Levy and his son Dan about a wealthy family forced to live in a tiny town would dominate the Emmys in its sixth and final season. It brought O'Hara, always a beloved figure, a new generation of fans and put her at the center of cultural attention.

She told The Associated Press that she pictured Moira, a former soap opera star, as someone who had married rich and wanted to "remind everyone that (she was) special, too." With an exaggerated Mid-Atlantic accent and obscure vocabulary, Moira spoke unlike anyone else, using words like "frippet," "pettifogging" and "unasinous," to show her desire to be different, O'Hara said. To perfect Moira's voice, O'Hara would pore through old vocabulary books, "Moira-izing" the dialogue even further than what was already written. Catherine O’Hara: Life-Changing Quotes By Moira Rose From 'Schitt's Creek' That Will Make Your Day!

The show also brought a career renaissance that led to a dramatic turn on HBO's The Last of Us and a straitlaced role as a Hollywood producer in The Studio, both of which earned her Emmy nominations.

Catherine O'Hara Husband, Children and Family

Catherine O'Hara is survived by her husband, Bo Welch, sons Matthew and Luke, and siblings Michael O'Hara, Mary Margaret O'Hara, Maureen Jolley, Marcus O'Hara, Tom O'Hara and Patricia Wallice.

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Noveck reported from New York. AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr and AP Writer R.J. Rico contributed.

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