The friends, former collaborators, and countless admirers of Catherine O’Hara are paying public tribute to her after her death on January 30 following a brief illness. The comic actress was an Emmy Award winner and a beloved entertainer across generations. Hollywood and beyond mourned her 50-year career, including her co-stars from Home Alone, her fellow nominees from her recent project The Studio, and longtime collaborators from what ended up being her final project, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.
Below, find all the celebrity tributes to the legendary Catherine O’Hara.
Dan Levy
Schitt’s Creek co-creator Dan Levy spoke on behalf of him and his father Eugene Levy on Instagram. “What a gift to have gotten to dance in the warm glow of Catherine O’Hara’s brilliance for all those years,” he wrote. “Having spent over fifty years collaborating with my Dad, Catherine was extended family before she ever played my family. It’s hard to imagine a world without her in it. I will cherish every funny memory I was fortunate enough to make with her.” Busy Philipps commented on his post “sending you and your family and her family so much love.”
Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese directed Catherine O’Hara in After Hours, a “one bad night” comedy that has achieved cult status over the years. “To lose Catherine O’Hara… it feels impossible to me, and to millions of others as well, I’m sure,” the director said in a statement obtained by IndieWire. His daughter, Francesca, posted a screenshot of their FaceTime when she presumably shared the news. “For me, and for most of my friends, it’s SCTV: all I have to do is think about one of the characters she created, like Lola Heatherton or Dusty Towne, and I’m laughing. Catherine was a true comic genius, a true artist, and a wonderful human being. I was blessed to be able to work with her on After Hours, and I’m going to miss her presence and her artistry. We all are.”
Bob Balaban
Balaban, who co-starred with O’Hara in many a Christopher Guest film, said he was “devastated” by her passing and praised the actress for her “gift of loopiness,” something he ascribed to being Canadian. “Catherine O’Hara had an extraordinary kindness that so many Canadians seem to have,” he told Page Six. “She also had the gift of loopiness that so many Canadian comic actors have, too — Eugene Levy, Marty Short, John Candy, for example.” Balaban suspects that the Canadian loopiness and kindness both come from “having to wear a woolen hat with earflaps for too many months of the year.”
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“Catherine was as smart as a person can be, but never showy,” he added. “And effortlessly creative with material. She had great generosity, which she would often use to bolster another actor’s performance…And you have to love a person who, after they beat you at a big, big hand of poker, apologizes.”
Michael Keaton
In an Instagram post, Keaton said he and O’Hara “go back before the first Beetlejuice.” He also shared his condolences with O’Hara’s husband, Bo Welch. “She’s been my pretend wife, my pretend nemesis and my real life, true friend,” he wrote. “This one hurts. Man am I gonna miss her.”
Seth Rogen
She was nominated for an Emmy for her work on Seth Rogen’s award-winning series The Studio for playing his former boss, studio executive Patty Leigh. “I told O’Hara when I first met her I thought she was the funniest person I’d ever had the pleasure of watching on screen,” Rogen wrote in a tribute on Instagram. “Home Alone was the movie that made me want to make movies. Getting to work with her was a true honour.” Variety reports that season two of the series had just started filming.
Pedro Pascal
Pedro Pascal and Catherine O’Hara acted together in the second season of HBO’s The Last of Us. “Eternally grateful,” Pascal wrote on Instagram. “There is less light in my world, this lucky world that had you, will keep you, always.”
