Catherine O’Hara, star of Schitts Creek and Home Alone, dies at 71

Catherine O’Hara, beloved for her roles in “Schitt’s Creek,” “Home Alone,” “Best in Show” and many other comedies, has died, her team confirmed to News.

O’Hara, a two-time Emmy Award winner, was 71 years old. His manager could not confirm the cause or time of death.

The Toronto-born actor and screenwriter recently starred in the television hits “The Last of Us” and “The Studio.” In a 2019 Vulture interview, O’Hara said she never wanted to be pigeonholed.

“There are actresses who want to stick to a certain way, and there are actors like me who want to play many different characters,” she said. “Don’t lock me up! Don’t lock me up! I want to do different things! I don’t know who I am!”

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O’Hara began in 1974 performing with The Second City, an improvisational comedy group with an outpost in Toronto, then joined the group’s spin-off production SCTV. She was later hired on “Saturday Night Live,” but left the show before appearing on air.

She then appeared as iconic on-screen mothers in 1988’s “Beetlejuice” and the first two “Home Alone” films in 1990 and 1992, and was a frequent collaborator with Christopher Guest in his mockumentaries, including 1996’s “Waiting for Guffman” and 2000’s “Best in Show.”

But to many fans, O’Hara is best known as Moira Rose, the eccentric former TV star sentenced to life in prison in a dilapidated rural Canadian motel on CBC’s “Schitt’s Creek,” which aired from 2015 to 2020. Her turn as an eccentric matriarch with a penchant for wigs earned her best comedy actress awards at the 2020 Emmys and the 2021 Golden Globes.

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“I’m not as interesting as Moira,” he joked in Vanity Fair in 2020.

Dan Levy, who created and starred in the show with his father, Eugene Levy, praised his on-screen mother for challenging Hollywood’s narrow ideas about casting older women.

“The networks later on have pigeonholed or diminished the idea of ​​what an older female character can be,” she told the magazine at the time. “So to be able to be a part of this moment for Catherine O’Hara at this point in her life and show the world that there is nothing sexier, nothing more hysterical than a woman over 50, that was the joy. Because you’re dealing with a caliber of actor who has so much experience and is so willing to make decisions that are outside of people’s comfort zones. I think Moira Rose is the result of that: Catherine has the runway to do it.”

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She and Eugene Levy, who played her husband on “Schitt’s Creek,” became lifelong collaborators after meeting in the 1970s, working together on Second City and co-starring in three of Guest’s films before resuming their partnership as Moira and Johnny Rose.

O’Hara also maintained a friendship with her “Home Alone” co-star Macaulay Culkin, who paid her a touching tribute on Instagram.

“Mom. I thought we had time. 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. I’ll see you later,” he wrote.

O’Hara is survived by her husband and two children.

Take a look at some moments from O’Hara’s storied career:

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Frank Ockenfels/Getty

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Photo by Bonnie Schiffman/Getty Images

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Photo by George Pimentel/Getty

Sara Boboltz contributed to this report.