Whether in a high-concept comedy sketch idea, what if Katharine Hepburn turned a tea commercial into an anecdote about a secret afternoon with a stagehand? – or in a slapstick sitcom about today’s Hollywood. Catherine O’Hara had an exceptional instinct for putting the perfect twist on a gag.
The Canadian actress was equal parts team player and scene-stealer, a physical performer (that dance in Beetlejuice!) and someone with an unerring sense of pointed lines of dialogue.
Here are our favorites from the late Catherine O’Hara’s work.
“SCTV” (1976-1984)
O’Hara had already been part of Second City in Toronto for years when the improv troupe developed the idea for a television series. It was supposed to revolve around the loose premise of a tiny TV station broadcasting from the small Canadian town of Melonville. O’Hara was a central character in the early years and left the series after two seasons.
When “SCTV” was picked up by NBC for its fourth season, she returned – and especially in this so-called Network 90 era, when episodes grew from 30 to 90 minutes, O’Hara proved that she was the show’s secret MVP. You can’t talk about this defining sketch show without highlighting O’Hara’s celebrity impersonations: a brilliant Brooke Shields, a great Katharine Hepburn, and an uncannily precise Liz Taylor, who suddenly INCREASE HER VOLUME mid-sentence.
There were also recurring characters like the all-round entertainer Lola Heatherton, one of the sharpest reckonings with the desperation of show business. O’Hara also wrote the best game show parody of all time – including an equally funny sequel. It’s hard to pick a single highlight from their two separate phases on “SCTV,” but if we had to, we’d go with “Long Distance Call,” a masterpiece of ever-escalating absurdity. —David Fear
“Beetlejuice” (1988)
While Winona Ryder’s character Lydia in Beetlejuice was considered “strange and unusual,” it was her stepmother Delia, played by O’Hara, who pushed her in that direction with bizarre sculptures, post-postmodern interior design (with the help of “some gasoline and a cutting torch”) and friendship with eccentric designer Otho Fenlock. O’Hara was ideal for the role because she could seem bad and sleazy at the same time.
Her performance, in which she sings Harry Belafonte’s “Day-O” at a dinner party possessed by a ghost, is a real scene-stealer: Delia looks both shocked and thrilled. —Kory Grow
“Home Alone” (1990)
For many millennials, O’Hara’s first presence was in the Home Alone series, where she played the extremely nervous Kate McCallister, Kevin’s mother. She is a devoted mother in the style of the 1990s – and yet she loses her son (Macaulay Culkin) twice: first she accidentally leaves him at home, and later she also loses him in New York.
Her role is inextricably linked to the panicked screaming of Kevin’s name that runs through Home Alone and New York Alone, and which O’Hara would later repeat countless times on the street for fans. Culkin continued to call her “Mom” decades later, for example during her speech at his Hollywood Walk of Fame star awards in 2024. After her death, he wrote on Instagram: “I thought we still had time. I love you. See you later.” —Angie Martoccio
Waiting for Guffman (1996)
Only Catherine O’Hara, in the Chinese restaurant scene of “Waiting for Guffman,” could deliver a line as perfectly drunkenly dry as: “Psst, girl talk: What’s it like with a circumcised man?” The embarrassing conversation killer becomes increasingly grotesque when her screen husband Fred Willard says he’s had a penis reduction, to which O’Hara says he asked her, “Why don’t you get a vaginal enlargement?”
Waiting for Guffman was the first of four feature collaborations with writer-director Christopher Guest (five if you count Spinal Tap II) and featured O’Hara as a brilliant ensemble player. Together with Willard, she embodies a married travel agent couple who are looking for their big break in a provincial theater play. Every scene with her is spot on. —KG
“Best in Show” (2000)
In Best in Show, her second collaboration with Christopher Guest, O’Hara plays Cookie Fleck, who travels to the Mayflower Kennel Club Dog Show in New York with her husband Gerry (Eugene Levy) and Norwich Terrier Winky. As Cookie, she ditches any maternal aura from Home Alone and instead plays a demure bombshell and former waitress with “hundreds of friends.”
But O’Hara doesn’t turn Cookie into a one-dimensional punchline, but rather gives her real warmth. Her love for her husband and her dog is palpable in every scene – whether she meets an old lover in the living room or makes herself comfortable in the hotel storage room. —Elisabeth Garber-Paul
“A Mighty Wind” (2003)
This loving parody of the 1960s folk scene delivers plenty of laughs, but the emotional center is the scenes with O’Hara and Eugene Levy. As the folk duo Mitch & Mickey, once-lovers whose hit “A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow” always ended with a kiss, O’Hara carries the most emotional weight.
When the two of them are forced to play the song again years later, their faces alone tell a whole life story full of love and loss. The duo’s performance at the Oscars, when the song was nominated, is one of the most moving moments in film history. —DF
“Schitt’s Creek” (2015-2020)
After decades in supporting roles, O’Hara was finally able to show the full range of her skills in “Schitt’s Creek.” As Moira Rose, a washed-up soap star and matriarch of an impoverished family, she became a cult figure. Their human hair wigs, their cooking instructions “fold in the cheese!” and her bizarre accent made Moira immortal.
O’Hara won multiple Emmys for the role, and a new generation discovered her. Moira’s snappy one-liners are still quoted today – and will remain so. —AM
“The Studio” (2025)
In “The Studio,” O’Hara plays Patty Leigh, a fired studio boss who manipulatively keeps her successor in control. With perfect timing, she alternates between desperation, anger and calculated kindness. Beneath the surface lies the experience of a woman who survived Hollywood.
Her ability to react to Seth Rogen’s embarrassing missteps with pure horror greatly increases the show’s shame factor. It’s one of the best performances of the entire show. —Julyssa Lopez
“The Last of Us” (2025)
One of her last roles showed O’Hara from an unusual side: as therapist Gail in the post-apocalyptic world of “The Last of Us”. She plays a woman who has to deal with her own grief while helping others with great calm. The camera often lingers on her face – and every twitch tells a story.
O’Hara conveys Gail’s pain and loneliness just as impressively as the exaggerated expressions of her comic characters. —Maria Fontoura
