Her expressive features and comedic talent were unmistakable. Canadian-American actress Catherine O’Hara, prolific across film and television, died on Friday, January 30, at the age of 71, at her home in Los Angeles, following an illness. Over a 50-year career, she made a lasting mark on both the big and small screen with performances that became cult classics.
Born in 1954 in Toronto, Ontario, O’Hara grew up in a family of Irish descent, where laughter played a central role. She made her television debut with the Toronto troupe Second City. After several appearances in Canadian productions, she first broke into American cinema by landing a role as an ice cream vendor in After Hours (1986), directed by Martin Scorsese.
In Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice (1988), her performance as Winona Ryder’s stepmother opened the doors to success. The scene in which, possessed by the ghost for whom the film is named, she launches into a lipsync of Harry Belafonte’s “Day O” and leads her dinner guests in a swaying dance, is a comedic landmark.
‘Kevin!’
Although an actor’s career cannot be summed up by a single line, it is impossible to separate O’Hara from a scream followed by a theatrical faint: “Kevin!” in 1990’s Home Alone. She portrayed a mother so overwhelmed she forgets one of her children in their large Illinois home before a Christmas flight to Paris. The comedy, directed by Chris Columbus, was an immediate worldwide success and quickly became a cult classic, especially thanks to annual reruns during the holiday season. It even spawned a sequel, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York in 1992, which featured an appearance by Donald Trump, then a prominent businessman, playing himself.
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