We’re still taking in the sad news that the wonderful Catherine O’Hara has passed. For some of us here at The A.V. Club, the actor was a constant—and reliably funny—childhood screen presence. And just last year, she graced us with memorable performances in The Studio and The Last Of Us. It’s a remarkable career—and the fact that O’Hara’s hilarious turn as Cookie Fleck, the “very popular” dog handler in Best In Show, somehow didn’t make the list below speaks volumes. So to toast her talent, we asked the staff: What’s your favorite Catherine O’Hara performance?
Mickey Crabbe, A Mighty Wind
Whether as a delusional community-theater veteran or dog-show underdog, Catherine O’Hara brought warmth and empathy to Christopher Guest’s flawed characters, turning larger-than-life improv creations into human beings. Guest and O’Hara’s third movie together, A Mighty Wind, reteamed the actor with Eugene Levy and proved how resonant these oddball comedies about low-stakes ego trips could be. As she often did, O’Hara provided the emotional spine of Guest’s over-the-hill folkie reunion as Mickey, one half of an estranged folk duo with Mitch (Levy), the film’s catatonic wild card. This reunion is a personal risk for Mickey, who is reopening old wounds in the hope of recapturing the most creatively fulfilling time of her life. When Mitch reveals that he was late because he was searching for the perfect rose, O’Hara primes the pump for a bittersweet finale. There isn’t a dry eye in the house when he plants that kiss at the end of “Rainbow” (nor at the Oscars, when it was nominated for Best Song). It’s what makes A Mighty Wind such a special project. Few comedies can end on such a poignant note. Even fewer have a powerhouse like O’Hara who can follow it with a solo performance of the bladder-controlling autoharp banger “Sure-Flo Song.” [Matt Schimkowitz]
Kate McCallister, Home Alone
On paper, Home Alone‘s Kate McCallister has some pretty glaring red flags as a parent. (There’s the obvious “failed to keep track of her elementary schooler on an international vacation” thing, but she’s also weirdly insensitive to the massive amounts of abuse heaped on him by basically every other person in the 1990 classic.) Catherine O’Hara didn’t shy away from those unsympathetic qualities in her performance, setting up Home Alone‘s early “that’ll show ’em” wish-fulfillment elements with a perfectly clipped delivery of parental injustice. But that same sharp-edged energy also makes her a force to be reckoned with once she realizes her mistake, as Kate moves heaven, hell, and the heart of the Polka King Of The Midwest in her efforts to get back to her kid. Like many of O’Hara’s best characters, Kate looks and sounds put together—while carrying such a manic charge that the viewer has no doubts she’ll do anything to find a way out of Scranton on Christmas Eve. [William Hughes]
Lola Heatherton, SCTV
O’Hara could sing, but you’d never know it from her most prominent SCTV character, Lola Heatherton, the fabulously desperate, always tipsy singer-actor wannabe who popped up throughout the sketch series in a litany of variety-show specials and talk-show appearances. Sharing more than a little bit of DNA with Moira Rose, Heatherton’s desire to be a star far outweighed her actual talent—unless you’re talking about her talent for melodramatic breakdowns and making terrible decisions about men. Willing to do whatever it takes to succeed, but with her outsized confidence always on the verge of a teary crackup, the cartoon absurdity of Heatherton’s incompetence remained rooted in the grim realities of show business, with O’Hara spiking her song-and-dance routines and chat-show interviews with dark comedy. Only 22 when SCTV debuted, characters like Heatherton revealed O’Hara as an already fully-formed comedic powerhouse. [Garrett Martin]
Delia Deetz, Beetlejuice
Kate McCallister may have accidentally left her young son home alone in Chicago during her family’s trip to Paris, but two years earlier, O’Hara tackled a decidedly more terrible parent. As her agent (played by none other than Dick Cavett) summed her up: “Delia, you are a flake. You have always been a flake. If you insist on frightening people, do it with your sculpture.” And in the hands of the actor, this stepmother, a cartoony version of a snobby, untalented, and status-obsessed New York artist, is an absolute delight to watch break down onscreen, giving—aside from Michael Keaton’s unhinged star turn, of course—the loudest performance here. It’s honestly hard to think of who else could do the eye work needed to land the very silly sequence when she unwittingly lip-synchs Harry Belafonte’s “Banana Boat (Day-O).” And Delia’s calculated craziness when dressing down her husband makes Beetlejuice just that much more fun, particularly during this bit: “Charles, I will not stop living and breathing art just because you need to relax. I’m here with you. I will live with you in this hellhole, but I must express myself. If you don’t let me gut out this house and make it my own, I will go insane and I will take you with me!” [Tim Lowery]
Gail, After Hours
Catherine O’Hara’s bizarre, impish energy and clockwork timing extended to playing an endlessly annoying Tim Robinson-esque character in Martin Scorsese’s hilarious and nerve-wracking After Hours. She could’ve just been another surreal obstacle for Paul Hackett (Griffin Dunne) to stumble over during his night of hell, but her wicked, gleeful eccentricity morphs an apologetic encounter (she initially offers to bandage up his arm, which she’s injured with a cab door) into yet another nested bad dream. Though it’s most memorable for her interrupting his phone call by chanting a string of memory-jumbling numbers, her brief scene as a random New York loony also plants the seeds of a great running gag: She’s an ice-cream truck driver, and her sinister Mister Softee mobile soon leads the rabble chasing Paul. As Fran Lebowitz said when interviewing Scorsese: “Catherine O’Hara, you feel like she would have an ice cream truck.” [Jacob Oller]
Moira Rose, Schitt’s Creek
Even O’Hara’s delivery of a single word like bébé struck gold on Schitt’s Creek, in which the actor helped turn an over-the-top character into arguably the role of a lifetime. Playing Moira Rose for six seasons wasn’t exactly a resurgence for the performer, but the role was a reminder of her singular comedic talent and chemistry with longtime collaborator Eugene Levy. From its humble beginnings on Pop TV, Creek would go on to become a worldwide phenomenon, rightfully earning O’Hara her first acting Emmy in 2020. (She won one for writing in 1982 for her work on SCTV.) As extravagant as Moira was—she could often make me cry laughing—I’ll always be struck by how much pathos O’Hara brought to all of her eccentricities. [Saloni Gajjar]
Sheila Albertson, Waiting For Guffman
One mark of an excellent comedic actor is that they can deliver the simplest piece of dialogue in a way that is memorable, unexpected, and, above all, funny. O’Hara does all this and more when she asks “Where’s that?” in Waiting For Guffman. Of course, there’s so much more to her performance in this film—the one that started a long collaboration with director Christopher Guest—but the moment is emblematic of O’Hara’s unmatched comic skill. As the small-town travel agent Sheila Albertson, O’Hara performed the character’s delusions of grandeur with a side of empathy that still let her resemble something like a real person. And just try not to laugh during her audition for Red, White & Blaine, which she performs across from husband Ron (Fred Willard), mouthing along with his dialogue before howling out her own. [Drew Gillis]
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