Legendary actor and comedian Catherine O'Hara has passed away at the age of 71, according to TMZ.
O'Hara, who starred in movies like Beetlejuice and Best in Show, and shows like Schitt's Creek and The Studio, reportedly passed away on Friday. Her cause of death is presently unknown.
From 2015 to 2020, O'Hara portrayed Moira Rose, an aging actress and matriarch of a family that loses all their money and moves into a small-town motel in the hit series Schitt's Creek, co-created by Dan Levy and Eugene Levy. She won an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series in 2020.
O'Hara was also famous for playing Kate McCallister, a mother who fights to reunite with her son Kevin (Macaulay Culkin) after accidentally forgetting him for a family trip, in Home Alone and Home Alone 2.
More recently, she starred in the HBO shows The Last of Us and The Studio. She was nominated for Emmys for both roles.
She is survived by her husband, Bo Welch.
Born and raised in Toronto, O'Hara got her start in the entertainment industry as a player on the sketch comedy show SCTV, a Canadian counterpart to SNL. Her first feature film, 1980's Double Negative, also starred Eugene Levy, whom she would work with throughout her career in Christopher Guest mockumentaries like Best in Show and A Mighty Wind, in addition to Schitt's Creek.
O'Hara's character in Schitt's Creek, Moira, was a fashion icon known for her wit and memorable one-liners (her favorite season? awards) — as well as the love she showed for her queer son, David (Dan Levy). The part endeared her to LGBTQ+ audiences. She was also beloved for her iconic role of Delia Deetz — a fabulously self-absorbed artist and stepmother — in 1998's Beetlejuice and its 2024 sequel Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.
After news broke of O'Hara's death, tributes poured in for an actress whose long career of indelible film and TV characters, particularly her portrayal of mothers, touched so many throughout their lives. As Culkin remarked in a touching post on Instagram, in which he juxtaposed the reunion scene from Home Alone alongside a recent picture of them together, "Mama. I thought we had time. ... I love you."
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