One month into 2026 and Hollywood has lost another legend! Catherine O’Hara passed away on Friday, per the Associated Press. She was 71. O’Hara was a gifted comic actor born in Canada. Among her many iconic roles, she starred as the mother in the first two ‘Home Alone’ films. Following news of her death, her co-star Macaulay Culkin, who played her son in the movies, shared a message that has fans crying even harder!
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Catherine O’Hara Died Following An Illness
Catherine O’Hara died at her home in Los Angeles “following a brief illness,” according to a statement from her agency, Creative Artists Agency. There are no further details about said illness at this time. It’s unclear if the actress was alone when she died.
She is survived by her husband, Bo Welch, and sons Matthew and Luke. Additionally, she is survived by six siblings, Michael O’Hara, Mary Margaret O’Hara, Maureen Jolley, Marcus O’Hara, Tom O’Hara and Patricia Wallice.
Macaulay Culkin Shares Message For His Movie “Mama”
Within hours of her death announcement, Macaulay Culkin pushed saddened fans over the edge with a childhood throwback. He shared a screen grab of him and Catherine O’Hara in the ‘Home Alone’ film next to a photo of them two years ago. In the more recent photo, Macaulay was supporting Catherine at her Hollywood Walk of Fame star reveal on December 1, 2023.
In the caption of his tribute post, which he shared on several platforms including Instagram and Threads, he referred to O’Hara as “Mama.”
“I thought we had time. 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. I’ll see you later,” Macaulay Culkin wrote.
Over 20,000 Instagram users slid into his IG comment section to share their love, condolences and grief. The post has also pulled in nearly 700,000 likes and counting.
Catherine Built A Legacy To Remember
Catherine O’Hara was THAT GIRL on the screen, but her icon status didn’t come without persistence. She started acting in the 1970s at Second City Television, where she first linked with her lifelong collaborator and ‘Schitt’s Creek’ costar, Eugene Levy. Together, they were part of the original cast of the sketch show ‘SCTV.’ It aired on Canadian TV in the 1970s, and aired on NBC in the U.S. in the early ’80s.
Her entry into Hollywood started with supporting characters roles in Martin Scorsese’s 1985 ‘After Hours’ and Tim Burton’s 1988 ‘Beetlejuice’ — a role she played again in the 2024 sequel.
Then came the ‘Home Alone’ movies. In that role, she was a horrified mother who accidentally abandoned her child (played by Macaulay Culkin) twice. The films were among the biggest box office earners of the early 1990s and their Christmas setting made them TV reruns.
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 Might Wind” and 2006’s “For Your Consideration.”
“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 on HBO’s “The Last of Us” and a straitlaced role as a Hollywood producer in “The Studio,” both of which earned her Emmy nominations.
AP Entertainment Writers Andrew Dalton, Jocelyn Noveck, Lindsey Bahr and R.J. Rico contributed to this report via AP Newsroom.
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