Catherine O’Hara, a veteran actor who starred in Home Alone, Schitt’s Creek and Best in Show, has died, her manager confirmed to Variety. She was 71. According to her agency CAA, O’Hara died Friday at her home in Los Angeles following a brief illness. O’Hara’s Hollywood career spanned five decades, beginning with the Canadian sketch comedy series Second City Television, for which she earned her first Emmy. O’Hara went on to star in films such as After Hours, Beetlejuice and the first two Home Alone movies, in which she played the mother of Macaulay Culkin‘s character, Kevin. O’Hara maintained a close friendship with Culkin and honored him at his Walk of Fame ceremony in 2023.
She was a frequent collaborator of Christopher Guest’s, appearing in his mockumentary films Best in Show, For Your Consideration, Waiting for Guffman and A Mighty Wind. And she had voice roles in beloved animated features including The Nightmare Before Christmas and Chicken Little. O’Hara’s recent roles also included the legacy sequel Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, in which she reprised her role as Delia Deetz, and the Apple action film Argylle.
O’Hara experienced a career renaissance in her 60s, starting with her role as riches-to-rags housewife Moira Rose in the CBC sitcom Schitt’s Creek, in which she starred opposite Eugene and Dan Levy and Annie Murphy. She won her second Emmy for Schitt’s Creek, which propelled her into other major TV roles in HBO’s The Last of Us and Apple TV’s The Studio. In the latter, O’Hara played a storied Hollywood executive who was shoved aside by her studio. The second season of the Seth Rogen showbiz satire recently began filming.
In an interview with Variety about The Studio in 2025, O’Hara reflected on how Hollywood has
O’Hara was born in Toronto, Canada, but she became a beloved figure in Los Angeles. She was named the honorary mayor of Brentwood in 2021. She is survived by her two adult children, Luke and Matthew Welch.
-by Ethan Shanfeld
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