Actress Catherine O’Hara was rushed to hospital with breathing difficulties in the early hours of Friday morning before she died, reports say.
The beloved star of films and TV shows alike, from Home Alone and Beetlejuice to Schitt’s Creek, was 71, with her rep confirming to Metro that she had died following ‘a brief illness’.
According to dispatch audio obtained by the Daily Mail, the actress was having ‘difficulty breathing’ before she was rushed to hospital.
Emergency responders for the Los Angeles Fire Department were dispatched to her Brentwood home address after receiving a call at 4:48am on Friday for an ‘approximately 70-year-old woman’.
The patient, presumed to be O’Hara, was then transported to hospital ‘in serious condition’, the LAFD confirmed to the publication.
A cause of death has yet to be announced.
O’Hara’s last public appearance was in September, at Apple TV’s Primetime Emmy party, where she was photographed on the red carpet at Ysabel in West Hollywood.
A week earlier she had accepted the TIFF Norman Jewison Career Achievement Award onstage in her Canadian hometown during the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival.
She didn’t make an appearance at the Golden Globes on January 11, despite picking up a nomination for best supporting actress in a series, miniseries or television film for her work on Seth Rogen’s industry satire The Studio.
O’Hara is survived by her husband, American production designer Bo Welch, 74, whom she met while working on Beetlejuice and married in 1992, and their two adult children, Luke and Matthew Welch.
A private celebration of her life will be held by the family in due course.
O’Hara was best known for roles such as Delia Deetz in Beetlejuice (1988) and its 2024 sequel, and Macaulay Culkin’s on-screen mother, Kate, in Home Alone (1990) and its Lost in New York sequel (1992).
In a career that stretched over 50 years, she was also beloved for her voice work in Tim Burton’s animated classic The Nightmare Before Christmas, her collaboration with Christopher Guest on mockumentaries like Waiting for Guffman and Best in Show – and of course her brilliance as the unparalleled Moira Rose in 80 episodes of Schitt’s Creek, which aired from 2015 to 2020.
Culkin, 45, paid tribute to his screen ‘mama’, writing: ‘Mama. I thought we had time. I wanted more. I wanted to sit in a chair next to you. I heard you but I had so much more to say. I love you. I’ll see you later.’
O’Hara had given a touching speech at his 2023 Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony, where he received a star on the famous walkway, sharing her pride in him surviving the pressures of childhood fame.
Pedro Pascal declared her ‘the one and ONLY’, having starred in season 2 of The Last of Us together.
He wrote on Instagram: ‘Oh, genius to be near you. Eternally grateful. There is less light in my world, this lucky world that had you, will keep you, always. Always ♥️’
Home Alone director Chris Columbus said he was ‘stunned and heartbroken, along with the rest of the world’ over losing O’Hara.
‘I was an obsessive fan of Catherine’s brilliant comedic work on SCTV and was thrilled when she agreed to play Kevin’s mom in Home Alone,’ he added. ‘What most people don’t realise is that Catherine carries the weight of 50 percent of that film. The movie simply would not work without her extraordinary performance.’
Filmmaker Burton, for whom O’Hara also worked on Frankenweenie, as well as Beetlejuice and The Nightmare Before Christmas, called her ‘a special part of my life and after life’, while Schitt’s Creek co-creator Dan Levy called her ‘extended family before she ever played my family’.
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‘What a gift to have gotten to dance in the warm glow of Catherine O’Hara’s brilliance for all those years,’ he penned on Instagram.
‘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.
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‘My heart goes out to Bo, Matthew, Luke and every member of her big, beautiful family.’
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