Schitts Creek and Home Alone actress Catherine O’Hara dies aged 71

Schitts Creek and Home Alone actress Catherine O’Hara has died at the age of 71. Her manager confirmed the news to Variety on Friday January 30, sharing that she passed away following a brief illness.

HELLO! has reached out to her representative for comment.

Born in 1954 in Toronto, Catherine was the sixth of seven children, and began her career in sketch and improvisational comedy in the series Second City Television in the 1970s.

In the 1980s she broke through in comedies After Hours (1985), Heartburn (1986), Beetlejuice (1988), Home Alone (1990) and the 1992 sequel Home Alone 2: Lost in New York playing the long-suffering mother of Macauley Culkin’s Kevin. Macauley and Catherine maintained a close friendship in the decades after the films, and he would call her “mom”.

She has won two Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and two Screen Actors Guild Awards.

Her career saw a resurgence when she took on the role of matriarch Moira Rose in the CBC sitcom Schitt’s Creek (2015–2020), earning an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award for the iconic character. 

She also appeared in the Netflix series A Series of Unfortunate Events (2017–2018), the Apple TV+ comedy series The Studio (2025), and the HBO post-apocalyptic drama series The Last of Us (2025).

On the set of Beetlejuice Catherine met production designer Bo Welch, and they fell in love, tying the knot in 1992.They welcomed two sons: Matthew (b. 1994) and Luke (b. 1997).