As a career matter, Catherine O’Hara fell somewhere between comedian, star, character actress, and “there’s that gal again” status. She began her career with the now-famous Second City comedy troupe in Toronto in the 1970s, replacingGilda Radner in the cast in 1976. Then she moved with fellow Second City players like John Candy and Eugene Levy to create its televised wing, SCTV, where she (hilariously) played characters like Brooke Shields:
In the 1980s she moved into the movies, and she may still be best-known for her role as Kate, the mother who (with her dopey husband) leaves her 8-year-old son Kevin behind on a holiday trip to Paris in the comedy Home Alone. Here’s her moment of realization:
Back in those pre-communication days, of course, a film could plausibly plot that the family simply couldn’t get in touch with the lad. O’Hara also starred in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992) before stepping off the bus for the various sequels that followed. At or around this point she transitioned from “wacky parodist” to a “straight” actress, though not without a strong streak of subversion.
She made movies with Christoper Guest and his merry pranksters of deadpan comedy in faux-documentaries like Waiting for Guffman (1996), A Mighty Wind (2003), and alongside her Second City colleague Eugene Levy in the dog-happy Best In Show (2000):
In a nice final touch, she worked with Levy and his son, Dan Levy, on the TV series Schitt’s Creek from 2015-2020. O’Hara won an Emmy for the show in 2020 as Moira Rose, “an eccentric former soap opera star, with a firm commitment to glamour and a fierce belief in her own celebrity.” (Or as the New York Timesput it in their obituary, “the reality-challenged Moira Rose.”) She was also awarded the Order of Canada in 2017, with the Governor General saying O’Hara “helped pave the way for the next generation of women in comedy.”
A great career! Good luck, Ms. O’Hara, wherever you may be.
