Simply put, Catherine O’Hara was one of the funniest people in the world.
Only it took the world far too long to realize the comic genius that had been staring them in the face for decades.
The Toronto-born actress died Friday at age 71 in Los Angeles, Calif., after a short illness. A true one of a kind, she made us howl with laughter for more than 50 years.
For many, O’Hara will always be Kevin McCallister’s frantic mom Kate in 1990’s “Home Alone” — a movie that remains so globally popular, it’s become a Christmas Eve tradition for most of Poland.
And of course, she was the artsy Manhattanite stepmother Delia in 1988’s “Beetlejuice.”
Both roles were deeply serious women, but her irrepressible hilarity broke through their steely facades. She was neither Macaulay Culkin nor Michael Keaton, but her “KEVIN!” and “DAY-O!” are two of the best-remembered movie scenes of the late 20th Century.
“I think everyone is born with humor, but your life can beat it out of you, sadly, or you can be lucky enough to grow up in it,” she told the New Yorker.
O’Hara had grown up around comedy greats since her earliest days onstage in Toronto.
She got her start north of the border in a legendary 1972 production of the musical “Godspell” alongside a stellar list of future stars: Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas, Gilda Radner, Victor Garber, Andrea Martin and Paul Shaffer.
Radner, who had worked with O’Hara’s brother Marc at the Global Village theater and dated him, introduced the young actress to the Second City comedy troupe.
O’Hara, Radner, Short, Thomas, Martin and Levy — who she’d work with again and again — went over to Toronto’s Second City in 1974, joined by John Candy and Rick Moranis. O’Hara was Radner’s understudy until her friend left for “Saturday Night Live.”
For the rest, that gig instead led to “SCTV” — a pre-taped sketch show that was Canada’s answer to “SNL.” Only much crazier.
A lot like O’Hara, “SCTV” uncompromisingly took its time (and a pesky cancellation) growing a cult fan base before exploding in 1981.
She played all kinds of wacky parts on the series that was comedy punk rock back then.
“My crutch was, in improvs: when in doubt, play insane,” she said. “Because you didn’t have to excuse anything that came out of your mouth. It didn’t have to make sense.”
O’Hara did Katharine Hepburn and June Cleaver from “Leave It To Beaver.” She once became Lucille Ball and croaked out a Christmas song to the tune of “Mame.”
“SCTV,” eventually filmed in Edmonton, Alberta, could afford to be a lot weirder than “SNL” at 30 Rock.
The actress’ gift for larger-than-life, outlandish characters was almost snuffed out by her move to mainstream Hollywood in the 1980s.
Although her experience on “Beetlejuice” gave her a family. She married production designer Bo Welch in 1992, and had two children, sons Matthew and Luke.
In 1996, her wild side came roaring back with the mockumentary “Waiting for Guffman” — O’Hara’s first of four brilliant collaborations with writer-director Christopher Guest.
In that send-up of a small-town musical, she played Sheila Albertson, a hugely overconfident travel agent who has never left the tiny community of Blaine, Missouri, and stars in all their local theater shows.
Things got even battier in 2000’s “Best in Show,” in which she starred as Cookie Fleck, the terrier-loving, nymphomaniac wife of Levy’s Gerry, en route to the Mayflower Kennel Club Dog Show.
“She’s had dozens of boyfriends,” Gerry says.
“Hundreds,” replies Cookie.
In 2003’s “A Mighty Wind,” Guest’s folk-music satire, O’Hara and Levy teamed up yet again as Mitch and Mickey, a former singing and romantic duo who reunite after many years apart.
The good friends and actors performed their sweet nominated song “A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow” at the Oscars in 2004. If you watch it today, you’ll be crying by the end.
O’Hara’s final film collaboration with Guest was 2006’s “For Your Consideration,” about a criminally underrecognized actress named Marilyn Hack, who turns into a monster when her tiny indie “Home for Purim” gets online Oscar buzz.
Though she played many egomaniacs, O’Hara herself was no diva. She was a well-loved performer who, throughout her career, kept humbly returning to breathtakingly funny ensembles.
Her final one was as a spurned, foul-mouthed Hollywood exec on Apple’s acclaimed “The Studio.”
And her lifelong fans were elated when, unlike poor Marilyn Hack, O’Hara was finally recognized with an acting Emmy Award in 2020 for playing out-of-touch Moira Rose on the sit-com “Schitt’s Creek” — with Levy.
Accepting the trophy for best actress in a comedy series, she thanked Levy and his son Dan for writing her a woman “who gets to fully be her ridiculous self.”
How lucky we were to get a half-century of the great Catherine O’Hara fully being her own ridiculous self.
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