Catherine O'Hara, Emmy-winning comedian of 'Schitt's Creek' and 'SCTV' fame, dies at 71

LOS ANGELES — Catherine O'Hara, a gifted Canadian-born comic actor and "SCTV" alum who starred as Macaulay Culkin's harried mother in two "Home Alone" movies and won an Emmy as the dramatically ditzy wealthy matriarch Moira Rose in "Schitt's Creek," died Friday. She was 71. O'Hara died at her home in Los Angeles "following a brief illness," according to a statement from her agency, Creative Artists Agency. Further details were not immediately available. O'Hara's career was launched at the Second City in Toronto in the in 1970s. It was there that she first worked with Eugene Levy, who would become a lifelong collaborator — and her "Schitt's Creek" costar. The two would be among the original cast of the sketch show "SCTV," short for "Second City Television." The series, which began on Canadian TV in the 1970s and aired on NBC in the U.S. in the early '80s, spawned a legendary group of esoteric comedians including Martin Short, John Candy, Andrea Martin, Rick Moranis and Joe Flaherty. Hollywood didn't entirely know what to do with O'Hara and her scattershot style. She played oddball supporting characters in Martin Scorsese's 1985 "After Hours" and Tim Burton's 1988 "Beetlejuice" — a role she would reprise in the 2024 sequel. She played it mostly straight as a horrified mother who accidentally abandoned her child in the two "Home Alone" movies. The films were among the biggest box office earners of the early 1990s and their Christmas setting made them TV perennials Her co-star Culkin was among those paying her tribute Friday. "Mama, I thought we had time," Culkin said on Instagram alongside an image from "Home Alone" and a recent recreation of the same pose. "I wanted more. I wanted to sit in a chair next to you. I heard you. But I had so much more to say. I love you." Meryl Streep, who worked with O'Hara in "Heartburn," said in a statement that she "brought love and light to our world, through whipsmart compassion for the collection of eccentrics she portrayed." O'Hara would find her groove with the crew of improv pros brought together by Christopher Guest for a series of mockumentaries that began with 1996's "Waiting for Guffman" and continued with 2000's "Best in Show," 2003's "A Mighty Wind" and 2006's "For Your Consideration." "Best in Show" was the biggest hit and best remembered film of the series. It sees her paired as Levy's wife as the couple, Gerry and Cookie Fleck, takes their Norwich terrier to a dog show, and constantly run into Cookie's former lovers along the way. "I am devastated," Guest said in a statement to The Associated Press. "We have lost one of the comic giants of our age." Born and raised in Toronto, O'Hara was the sixth of seven children in a Catholic family of Irish descent. She graduated from Burnhamthorpe Collegiate Institute, an alternative high school. She joined Second City in her early 20s, as an understudy to Gilda Radner before Radner left for "Saturday Night Live." (O'Hara would briefly be hired for "SNL" but quit before appearing on air.) Nearly 50 years later, "Schitt's Creek" would be a career-capping triumph and the perfect personification of her comic talents. The small show created by Levy and his son, Dan, about a wealthy family forced to live in a tiny town would dominate the Emmys in its sixth and final season. It brought O'Hara, always a beloved figure, a new generation of fans and put her at the center of cultural attention. She told The Associated Press that she pictured Moira, a former soap opera star, as someone who had married rich and wanted to "remind everyone that (she was) special, too." With an exaggerated Mid-Atlantic accent and obscure vocabulary, Moira spoke unlike anyone else, using words like "frippet," "pettifogging" and "unasinous," to show her desire to be different, O'Hara said. To perfect Moira's voice, O'Hara would pore through old vocabulary books, "Moira-izing" the dialogue even further than what was already written. The show also brought a career renaissance that led to a dramatic turn as therapist to Pedro Pascal and other dystopia survivors on HBO's "The Last of Us" and a straitlaced comic role as Seth Rogen's reluctant mentor and freelance fixer on "The Studio," both of which earned her Emmy nominations. "Oh, genius to be near you," Pascal said on Instagram. "Eternally grateful. There is less light in my world." O'Hara is survived by her husband, Bo Welch, sons Matthew and Luke, and siblings Michael O'Hara, Mary Margaret O'Hara, Maureen Jolley, Marcus O'Hara, Tom O'Hara and Patricia Wallice. Noveck reported from New York. AP Writers Lindsey Bahr, R.J. Rico and Leanne Italie contributed.