O’Hara died on Friday (January 30) at her home in Los Angeles following a “brief illness”, her agency, CAA, said in a statement.
At the time of writing, no further details have been released.
The Canadian-born actress is known for roles in films like Beetlejuice, playing the character of Delia Deetz, Kevin’s beleaguered mother in Home Alone and Moira Rose in Schitt’s Creek.
Catherine O’Hara has sadly passed away at the age of 71 pic.twitter.com/ZnCTqEhGSw
— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) January 30, 2026
O’Hara was born in Toronto in 1954 and was the second youngest of seven children.
Her father worked for the Canadian Pacific Railway, and her mother was a real estate agent.
Her first acting gig was portraying the Virgin Mary in a Nativity play and after graduating from high school, she got a job as a waitress at the Second City Theatre in Toronto.
O’Hara’s career was actually launched at Second City in the 1970s.
It was there that she first worked with Eugene Levy, who would become a lifelong collaborator and her Schitt’s Creek co-star.
Later in her career, O’Hara’s dramatic turn in HBO’s The Last Of Us earned her an Emmy nomination, as did her recent role as a Hollywood producer in The Studio.
O’Hara was an alum of Toronto’s Second City Theatre and was one of the creators of the sketch comedy show SCTV which would help launch the careers of other top Canadian comedians including Martin Short and Andrea Martin.
She is survived by her husband, Bo Welch, and sons Matthew and Luke.