LOS ANGELES (AP) — Catherine O’Hara, a gifted Canadian comic actor and “SCTV” alum who starred as Macaulay Culkin’s harried mother in two “Home Alone” movies and created the dramatically ditzy character of Moira Rose on an Emmy-winning TV comedy, died Friday. She was 71.
O’Hara died at her home in Los Angeles “following a brief illness,” according to a statement from her agency, Creative Artists Agency. Further details were not immediately available.
Hollywood didn't entirely know what to do with O'Hara and her scattershot style. She played oddball supporting characters in Martin Scorsese's 1985 “After Hours” and Tim Burton's 1988 “Beetlejuice” — a role she would reprise in the 2024 sequel.
She played it mostly straight as a horrified mother who accidentally abandoned her child in the two “Home Alone” movies. The films were among the biggest box office earners of the early 1990s and their Christmas setting made them TV perennials.
O'Hara would find her groove with the crew of improv pros brought together by Christopher Guest for a series of mockumentaries that began with 1996's “Waiting for Guffman” and continued with 2000's “Best in Show,” 2003's “A Might Wind” and 2006's “For Your Consideration.”
O’Hara’s career was launched at the Second City in Toronto in the in 1970s. It was there that she first worked with Eugene Levy, who would become a lifelong collaborator — and her “Creek” costar. The two would be among the original cast of the sketch show “SCTV,” short for “Second City Television,” which spawned a legendary group of esoteric comedians including Martin Short, John Candy, Andrea Martin, Rick Moranis and Joe Flaherty.
“Creek” would be a career-capping triumph and the perfect personification of her comic talents. The small show created by Levy and his son Dan about a wealthy family forced to live in a tiny town would dominate the Emmys in its sixth and final season. It brought O'Hara, always a beloved figure, a new generation of fans and put her at the center of cultural attention.
It also brought a career renaissance that led to a dramatic turn on HBO's “The Last of Us" and a straitlaced role as a Hollywood producer in “The Studio,” both of which earned her Emmy nominations.
She is survived by her husband, Bo Welch, and sons Matthew and Luke.
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Noveck reported from New York. AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr contributed reporting.
