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Comedian and TV legend Catherine O’Hara has died. Her death was confirmed by her manager to multiple outlets on Jan. 30. She was 71.
O’Hara died at her home in Los Angeles after a brief illness, her reps confirmed. The actress had her iconic start at the Second City Theater in Toronto and helmed SCTV. She has graced the screens as Kevin McAllister’s mom in Home Alone and Home Alone 2, Delia Deetz in Beetlejuice and its sequel, and, more recently, as Moira Rose on Schitt’s Creek. For her role as the matriarch, she won the Emmy for outstanding lead actress in a comedy series in 2020.
Catherine O’Hara’s net worth was $10 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth. While details of her will haven’t been released, she is survived by two of her sons, Luke, 28, and Matthew, 31, and her husband, Bo Welch.
In a 2019 interview with Vulture, she talked about social media’s impact on her sons and how they argued that video games could lead to a lucrative career. “When I wanted them to get off their games, they’d go, ‘We can make really big money!’ and they’d talk about [this] guy who plays games on the internet. And then I saw him on Colbert and there was no conversation. He actually showed clips from his work!” Her sons currently work in production.
She also explained that the success of Home Alone contributed to what could have been one of her biggest paychecks, but she was reluctant to have a big role in the sequel. “It was not until I negotiated for the second movie was I aware that I was maybe part of a big project! That was the most money I have ever been offered up front. That’s when I negotiated not to be there for all 12 weeks of the shoot. You could take more money, and be available for the whole shoot.”
“I’m kind of a homebody, so for the second one, I didn’t want to have to be there for the whole shoot because I knew I wasn’t in every scene,” she continued. “So I took less money, which was still an insane amount of money, and they condensed my work. So
that’s the only spot where I took advantage of the fact that it was a big movie. But that’s because it was a sequel, and the first film was so, so loved and still is. Wow.”
