Today I want to celebrate O'Hara's lengthty career and impact by going over her career and explaining what her work and movies meant to me.
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This one sucks. All loses of talented artists suck, but that goes double for someone who has had such a long, influential career that was seemingly just as strong now as it was in the late eighties and early nineties. The whole time, delivering hilarious and heart-warming performances in equal measure.
So today I want to celebrate O'Hara's lengthty career and impact by going over her career and explaining what her work and movies meant to me.
As a performer O'Hara's career is uniquely easy to divide into eras. Starting with the Second City era.
Second City
O'Hara's career kicked off with a murderer's row of comic talent from Second City Toronto, including John Candy and Eugene Levy before writing and performing in SCTV with the likes of Harold Ramis, Martin Short, Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis where she won on an Emmy for writing in 1982.
A very shrewd decision, considering O'Hara had been tagged to be in SNL during one of the show's roughest patches, especially for women on the show.
And from there...movies.
Mainstream Success
1988 is the year O'Hara truly broke out in a big way, movie-wise thanks to Tim Burton's Beetlejuice, where she played the Deetz family matriarch Delia. Perhaps not a lead role, but one that absolutely leaned on O'Hara's comedic sensibilities as she portrayed a pretentious artist at odds with her home, a ghoul, and her own daughter.
But 1990 is the year she exploded starring in four movies. None bigger than the now beloved holiday classic, and box office juggernaut, Home Alone. Which was certainly a pivot for O'Hara who gets a lot of the dramatic heavy lifting in the movie after years of being so laser focused on comedy. See her being the straight-woman in her interactions with her friend and Second City castmate John Candy.
And while O'Hara was known and celebrated, and came back for Home Alone 2 and voicing Sally in the cult favorite Nightmare Before Christmas she never found a role that took off in the same way.
Which led to perhaps my favorite period in her career, The Christopher Guest run.
Which led to perhaps my favorite period in her career, The Christopher Guest run.
Christopher Guest, Eugene Levy, and Catherine O'Hara
In 1995 Christopher Guest returned to the genre he popularized with Rob Reiner in This is Spinal Tap with Waiting for Guffman a delightfully deadpan send-up of the outsized egos of community theater performers with a core group of actors that would follow Guest for many of the film's that followed including Fred Willard and Parker Posey. But the standouts were undeniably O'Hara and Eugene Levy whose improv background, a key since almost none of Guest's movies have dialogue written beforehand and working chemistry was as strong as ever, even years removed from SCTV.
A lesson both Guest and Levy clearly learned as they would go on to couple up Levy with O'Hara for two of their next three films together (Best in Show and A Mighty Wind) with O'Hara helping to write and perform the music for A Mighty Wind.
This reminder of O'Hara's comedic talents and indie cred may not have led to breakout mainstream success, but it did lead to a number of voice ove roles of speaking parts in films.
And then...there's Schitt's Creek
Schitt's Creek
There's a ton of reasons Schitt's Creek became a beloved show. It smartly shifted from being about horrible people to being about selfish people learning to be good people which allowed for character growth throughout the show. It was/is incredibly inclusive, especially when it comes to portraying queer love on TV. And it is hilarious.
And so many of the show's best moments and jokes all come from O'Hara's Moira Rose. Her absurd pronunciations. Her outfits. Her impenetrable ego. Her moments of unexpected warmth. While everyone else feels like they're playing a version of themselves, Moira Rose is bit of comedic genius that gets better and better as the show progresses (and the writer's clearly leaned into O'Hara's strengths).
The entire cast is phenomenal, whether it's underrated recurring character's like Chris Elliot's mayor or the necessity of Emily Hampshire's underplayed Stevie Budd, but if someone is picking a Halloween costume from Schitt's Creek or quoting the show. It's almost always Moira.
What makes it even better is that the Levys (Dan and Eugene) have always been quick to note that O'Hara more or less created everything about the character that made her a pop culture icon. The fashion, the voice, the giant comedic swings that landed. Pretty much all her. The show's creators spoke about getting O'Hara like she was doing them a giant favor for their silly little show, and it both speaks to her talent and comedic sensibilities that she not only didn't phone it in for her longtime friend, she gave them was is arguably her signature performance.
What makes it even better is that the Levys (Dan and Eugene) have always been quick to note that O'Hara more or less created everything about the character that made her a pop culture icon. The fashion, the voice, the giant comedic swings that landed. Pretty much all her. The show's creators spoke about getting O'Hara like she was doing them a giant favor for their silly little show, and it both speaks to her talent and comedic sensibilities that she not only didn't phone it in for her longtime friend, she gave them was is arguably her signature performance.
And for the final season, an Emmy Winning one for O'Hara and the rest of the core four cast members.
While O'Hara would go on to work in more movies via voice-over work and TV, Schitt's Creek was her final masterpiece.
What Her Work Means to Me
There's so much that I can and do take away from O'Hara's amazing career. I love that she never stopped working, in an industry and genre that is especially unkind to women, until her passing at 71. I love how supportive she is and has been of her castmates including a close friendship with Macaulay Culkin that they maintained from Home Alone until O'Hara's passing and her nearly lifelong creative partnership with Eugene Levy. I love how acceptance of queer themes and characters were never a barrier or controversial to her. And it truly seems like everyone who had the pleasure of working with her, loved her. The tributes from her contemporaries and fellow performers has been staggering in it's unified message of "she was amazing and I miss her so much," be it a tribute during a live show from Martin Short or heartbreaking messages from co-stars like Michael Keaton and Annie Murphy.
The bottom line is that Catherine O'Hara made everything she was in and around better by being there.
But for me, the thing that always shone through in her performances was, warmth wrapped in silliness.
The sincerity in her concern for her son in Home Alone combined with choice comedic moments like the yelled "pick up!" The pivot's from discussion of a life together with her husband in Best in Show to elaborate tales of being promiscuous.
And then there's Moira. While the show certainly reveled in its character's growing empathy, the writer's understood that Moira was the best weapon in their arsenal.
In what might be the best episode of the show, Singles Week, Moira spends most of the episode worrying about the promotion of the titular singles week, but gets sidetracked when Jocelyn goes into labor.
She doesn't even drive Jocelyn. But she's there for her, while Roland tries and fails to get to the hospital on time. Not that she tries to take credit for it. Instead she undercuts her contribution when Jocelyn says she'll never forget this. "Well, if the drugs are any good you will."
She doesn't even drive Jocelyn. But she's there for her, while Roland tries and fails to get to the hospital on time. Not that she tries to take credit for it. Instead she undercuts her contribution when Jocelyn says she'll never forget this. "Well, if the drugs are any good you will."
From there she then gives her daughter a vote of confidence admitting that she underestimated her and gently nudges her to reunite with her love interest Ted by taking her clipboard. "You can't play the game with a clipboard in your hand."
Just one example of the warmth and silliness O'Hara provided on screen for decades that will be, and already is, dearly missed.
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