Canadian comedy legend Catherine O'Hara, who lit up SCTV and stole scenes on Schitt's Creek, dead at 71

Catherine O'Hara, the gifted Canadian comic actor who gave life to a flurry of iconic movie and television characters in everything from SCTV sketches, to big-screen hits like Beetlejuice and Home Alone, and the wildly successful sitcom Schitt's Creek, has died.

On Friday, O'Hara's agent confirmed that the 71-year-old died in her Los Angeles home "following a brief illness."

The sudden death of O'Hara, whose career spanned some 50 years, beginning with the foundational sketch comedy show SCTV alongside her frequent collaborator and fellow Canadian Eugene Levy, shocked Hollywood, and tributes from co-stars, friends, politicians and fans poured in for the actor.

"What a gift to have gotten to dance in the warm glow of Catherine O’Hara’s brilliance for all those years," wrote Dan Levy, Eugene Levy's son in an Instagram tribute. He starred alongside his father and O'Hara, who played his parents on Schitt's Creek.

"Having spent over fifty years collaborating with my Dad, Catherine was extended family before she ever played my family," he wrote. "It’s hard to imagine a world without her in it. I will cherish every funny memory I was fortunate enough to make with her."

Prime Minister Mark Carney and his predecessor Justin Trudeau also offered their condolences while remarking on O'Hara's impact on Canadian culture. 

O'Hara gained big-screen attention for supporting roles in Martin Scorsese's After Hours and Mike Nichols' Heartburn, Tim Burton's Beetlejuice and two Home Alone movies. She and Levy would also go on to become prominent members of Christopher Guest's stable of improv actors.

But her first big break came while working as a waitress at Toronto's Second City Theatre on Adelaide Street, where she watched the performers on stage and thought to herself, "I'd love to do that."

She joined Second City in her early 20s as an understudy to the late Gilda Radner, before she left for Saturday Night Live. (O'Hara herself was briefly hired for SNL in 1981, but she quit before ever appearing on air.)

O'Hara joined the touring company, then became a regular cast member on its television show, SCTV, performing with Levy and fellow Canadian comedy legends John Candy, Joe Flaherty, Andrea Martin, Harold Ramis, Rick Moranis, Dave Thomas and Martin Short.

O'Hara became known for playing charismatic and oddball supporting characters.

She played a deranged ice cream truck driver in After Hours — Scorsese's 1985 dark comedy about a man's terrible and unexpected night.

In Burton's 1988 film Beetlejuice she was the self-centred and melodramatic mother of a teenage girl who makes friends with ghosts haunting the family home, a role she would reprise in the 2024 sequel.

Unhinged mother figures became somewhat of a calling card for O'Hara, and in one of her biggest roles, she played a harried mother of five who accidentally leaves her youngest son, Kevin, (Macaulay Culkin), home alone at Christmas.