Feature: Catherine O'Hara: Her wigs are in mourning and honestly so are we

Catherine Anne O’Hara, a woman of devastating wit, transfixing facial elasticity, and wardrobe choices bold enough to end minor conflicts, has departed this mortal coil at the age of seventy-one.

Born in Toronto on 4 March 1954, to a bustling Irish-Canadian household of seven siblings, Catherine emerged into the world already brimming with character.

As fate would have it, her early days as a humble server at Toronto’s Second City Theatre, yes, she once ferried libations to the very stage she would soon command, transformed her trajectory forever. Within mere seasons, she had ascended the ranks, joining the revered comedy troupe Second City Television, where she unfurled a cavalcade of characters so unforgettable that even mime purists were moved to audible laughter.

It was on that chaotic sketch stage, amid colleagues like Eugene Levy and the late John Candy, that she began her lifelong devotion to dignified absurdity. SCTV wasn’t merely a programme, no, it was a crucible for comic brilliance. It was there she won her first Emmy, for writing, and proved that a woman needn’t raise her voice to be the loudest in the room.

As the 1980s gave way to what some might call "the decade of shoulder pads and creative exhaustion," Catherine’s screen presence became essential. Collaborations with Tim Burton followed, casting her as the interior designer possessed in Beetlejuice, and lending her voice, rich with melancholy, to Sally in The Nightmare Before Christmas. Her performance in these gothic fantasies married pathos with lunacy in a way that would become her signature.

Then came Home Alone. O’Hara’s portrayal of Kate McCallister, the harried matriarch who misplaces her child not once but twice, was nothing short of Shakespearean farce. Her now-iconic wail, “Kevin!” could summon snow from the Alps and is still echoed annually in living rooms across the globe. That scream, darlings, is not merely dialogue. It’s cinematic canon.

Yet she was never content to remain ensconced in nostalgia. In the twilight of her career, though truly, it was a second sunrise, Catherine incarnated the most transcendent role of all: Moira Rose, former soap star, fledgling chanteuse, patron saint of velvet and vowels. From 2015 to 2020, Schitt’s Creek became not just a television programme but a cultural balm. And Moira, with her gallery of wigs and incomprehensible accent, was its high priestess.

That role, equal parts satire and sincerity, won her an Emmy, a Golden Globe, and a galaxy of new devotees. It allowed Catherine to do what she did best: make you laugh until your body forgot its sorrows, then break your heart with a look that said, “Yes, I too know loneliness.”

And she kept going. In 2024, she reprised her role in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, giving fans one last glimpse of that glorious madness. She starred in Apple TV’s The Studio, commanding every scene as Patty Leigh, a studio executive who, despite being unceremoniously fired, reinvented herself as a wildly successful producer. Oh, how art and life did intertwine.

In her final chapter, she brought quiet brilliance to HBO’s The Last of Us, playing Gail, a therapist to Pedro Pascal’s Joel, in what became a devastating and memorable turn. Pascal called her “a genius to be near.” Ron Howard, who worked with her on The Paper, said she was “growing more brilliant each year.”