Catherine O'Hara, the comedic actress best known for her starring roles in the Home Alone and Beetlejuice films, as well as her Emmy-winning turn in Schitt's Creek, has died aged 71.
The Canadian star rose to fame through Toronto's Second City improvisation troupe and on SCTV, before making a name for herself in the US in 1988's Beetlejuice and as the matriarch in the holiday classic Home Alone.
O'Hara, whose colleagues remembered her as a wonderful person, artist and collaborator, most recently appeared in the Emmy-winning comedy The Studio and HBO's The Last of Us.
In a statement to the BBC, O'Hara's agent said she died on Friday at her home in Los Angeles following a brief illness.
O'Hara made lightning strike twice in her career with indelible cinematic turns. In 1988's spooky satire Beetlejuice, she played Delia Deetz who led her possessed dinner guests in an enthralling song and dance performance of Day-O (the Banana Boat song).
Two years later, in Home Alone, her panicked scream of Kevin! as she realizes her mischievous eight-year-old son had been left behind during their Christmas holiday became among the most memorable moments from one of the most successful film comedies ever.
Her young co-star Macaulay Culkin, now 45, paid tribute to his on-screen mother on Friday, sharing images of the two of them from the film and in later years: Mama. 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.
The Toronto-born actress got her foot in the door as a waitress at the Toronto Second City theatre franchise in the 1970s, before auditioning for a role with the famed acting troupe. She further developed her comedic chops after joining the cast of sketch comedy show Second City Television (SCTV) - one of the most successful Canadian TV programmes ever alongside the likes of Eugene Levy and the late John Candy.
In a statement to Variety, Guest said he was devastated and that we have lost one of the comic giants of our age. O'Hara had a late career surge thanks to the Canadian comedy series Schitt's Creek that became one of the biggest hits of the Covid lockdown.
Upon winning the Emmy Award for actress in a comedy, O'Hara thanked her co-stars Eugene and Dan Levy for giving her the opportunity to play a woman of a certain age - my age - who gets to fully be her ridiculous self.
She is survived by her husband Bo Welch and sons Matthew and Luke, as well as her siblings Michael O'Hara, Mary Margaret O'Hara, Maureen Jolley, Marcus O'Hara, Tom O'Hara, and Patricia Wallice.
