Catherine O'Hara, who starred in 'Home Alone' and 'Schitt's Creek,' dies at 71

"She enjoyed a six-decade career in TV and film playing sometimes over-the-top, but endearing characters. In one of her most memorable roles, O'Hara played the freaked-out mom of rascally son Kevin (Macaulay Culkin) in two Home Alone movies. Later, she portrayed the self-centered, whiny matriarch in the riches-to-rags TV sitcom Schitt's Creek a role for which she earned an Emmy and a Golden Globe Award in 2020."

"She cofounded the show, and created characters such as the show biz has-been Lola Heatherton. "I loved playing cocky untalented people," O'Hara told Fresh Air in 1992. On SCTV in the '70s and '80s, she teamed up with another Canadian comic actor, Eugene Levy. Together, they along with an ensemble went on to perform in a string of films by director Christopher Guest."

Catherine O'Hara died at her Los Angeles home after a brief illness at age 71. She built a six-decade career in television and film, specializing in absurdist, often over-the-top but endearing comedy. She gained fame as Kevin's frazzled mother in two Home Alone films and as the self-centered matriarch in Schitt's Creek, earning an Emmy and a Golden Globe in 2020. She won an Emmy in 1982 for writing on Second City Television, which she cofounded and where she created characters like Lola Heatherton. She frequently collaborated with Eugene Levy and director Christopher Guest and reprised her Beetlejuice role in the 2024 sequel.

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