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Now is certainly not the time for pettifogging. But can we confabulate about the comic brilliance of Catherine O’Hara? These radically arcane words, like so many others, dripped off the gifted comedian’s tongue so silkily as Moira, her singularly eccentric matriarch in Schitt’s Creek, that you laughed well before you wondered what the heck they meant. (For the record: “pettifogging” means to emphasise petty details, and “confabulate” simply means to talk.)
But conversely, O’Hara, who died on Friday at 71, could make a ho-hum phrase utterly hilarious. As when she desperately declared, trying a bit of line-cutting in the crowded Beetlejuice Beetlejuice afterlife waiting room, “I have global entry!”
And for something even more concise, how about her simple, one-word line reading of “KEVIN!!!” – the child she kept leaving behind in the Home Alone movies?
In any case, as Moira would say, don’t be a dewdropper (a lazybones.) Here are some indelible O’Hara roles to catch up on.
Moira in Schitt’s Creek (2015-2020)
The commercial Moira Rose films for local vintner Herb Ertlinger’s fruit wine start reasonably well. Until she tries to pronounce the product’s name. “Herb Ervlinger. Erv Herblinger. Bing Liveheinger,” she intones, inebriated, in a virtuosic scene that recalls Lucille Ball in her Vitameatavegamin ad.
Moira, a career-capping (and Emmy-winning) role in the comedy created by Eugene and son Dan Levy, brought O’Hara legions of new fans – and elevated a new vocabulary. She discovered much of it in obscure wordbooks, she said.
O’Hara said she’d created the character by thinking of women married to wealthy men – women who wanted to be seen as special, in their own right. Her unique look included a series of eccentric wigs. “I knew a woman who would have dinner parties at her house and she would keep disappearing and coming back with different wigs. And she would appear like, ‘Tada’ – whatever Moira was feeling on a particular day would dictate what kind of wig she would wear.” Streaming now on Binge.
Delia in Beetlejuice (1988) and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024)
Thirty-six years after the first Beetlejuice, Tim Burton returned with a 2024 sequel. Why, you ask? Well, here’s one really good reason: O’Hara. Her Delia Deetz, the narcissistic artist stepmum of Winona Ryder’s Lydia Deetz, was a supporting character who stole the whole show.
To sample her comic timing, just take the quick scene where Delia, mounting a gallery show where she herself is the canvas, notifies Lydia: “Your father has left me.”
“He’s divorcing you?” Lydia asks.
“What a horrible thought!” replies a shocked Delia. (Beat). “No, he’s dead.” Stream Beetlejuice on *Stan and HBO Max; and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice on HBO Max.
Kate McAllister in Home Alone (1990) and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992)
OK, motherhood is chaotic. It’s hard to keep track of everything. Things can mistakenly be left at home. A child, even. Once. But, twice? That’s iconic.
On the plane in that first Home Alone movie, Kate tells her husband she has a terrible feeling she’s forgotten something. “Did I turn off the coffee?” “Did you lock up?” And then, the awful realisation: “KEVIN!”
Kate had changed her hair into a stylish bob – but apparently hadn’t updated her mothering skills – two years later when, in the sequel, Kevin was again discovered missing, at the Miami airport. This time, O’Hara’s “KEVIN!” was squealed at a high pitch – accompanied by her falling backwards, unconscious.
Those moments allowed O’Hara, in a mostly straight role, to add bits of signature zaniness. But the reunion scenes with Kevin (Macaulay Culkin) were heartwarming, and it was hard not to tear up when she apologised and said: “Merry Christmas, sweetheart.”
“Mama, I thought we had time,” Culkin said on Instagram, alongside an image from Home Alone. Stream the Home Alone movies on Disney+.
Cookie in Best in Show (2000)
We have 80 episodes of Schitt’s Creek to see the brilliant synergy between O’Hara and Eugene Levy, but if you want to see their early magic, look no further than Cookie and Gerry Fleck, the married dog owners in Christopher Guest’s classic mockumentary Best in Show.
For example, when Cookie and Gerry sing an ode to their beloved Norwich Terrier. O’Hara, for one, sings in a musical key that sounds too high to exist on this planet. “God loves a terrier, yes he does,” they sing. “God didn’t miss a stitch, be a dog or be a bitch. When he made the Norwich merrier with its cute little derriere; Yes, God loves a terrier.” Best in Show is available to rent on Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV.
*Stan is owned by Nine, the publisher of this masthead.
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