Canadian actress, comedian, and screenwriter Catherine O’Hara has died. Her passing was announced on Friday, January 30, 2026, though a cause of death was not revealed. She was 71 years old.

O’Hara was best known for her roles in comedy, including as the eccentric artist Delia Deetz in Beetlejuice and forgetful, albeit loving mother Kate McCallister in Home Alone and its sequel. From 2015 to 2020 she starred in Schitt’s Creek as Moira Rose, a theatrical and sarcastic former soap opera star. She won an Emmy and a Golden Globe for her work on Schitt’s Creek.

She was born on March 4, 1954, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and her first acting role was playing Mary in a Nativity play. After she graduated from high school, O’Hara worked as a waitress at the Second City Theater in Toronto. It wasn’t long until she joined the theater company, showing off her comedic improv skills on stage.

O’Hara starred in the Second City Television (SCTV) sketch comedy series and became a writer on the show, receiving five Emmy nominations and a win for her work. Her film debut was in Double Negative with SCTV costars like Eugene Levy and John Candy. She was then in After Hours, she played Texie Garcia in the Dick Tracy movie, and was in There Goes the Neighborhood.

For The Nightmare Before Christmas, she voiced Sally and Shock, then she reunited with Beetlejuice costar Michael Keaton in The Paper. O’Hara took on a more serious role in Wyatt Earp and did an episode of Tales from the Crypt. In the late ‘90s and early 2000s, she was in Christopher Guest’s mockumentaries Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, and A Mighty Wind.

O’Hara was in Orange County, Surviving Christmas, she was in a few episodes of Six Feet Under, and voice acted in Chicken Little, Over the Hedge, Monster House, and Where the Wild Things Are. She did an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, was in Killers, voiced Mrs. Frankenstein in Frankenweenie, and she was in Argylle. In 2024, O’Hara reprised the role of Delia in Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, then she was in a few episodes of The Last of Us, and her final role was in The Studio TV series.