Catherine O'Hara died of blood clot in lung
The 71-year-old actress's death certificate says she died of a pulmonary embolism and listed rectal cancer as a secondary factor.
Emmy-winning actress Catherine O'Hara, who starred in Schitt's Creek and Home Alone, died from a blood clot in her lungs, her death certificate reveals.
The Canadian-born performer was rushed to the hospital on 30 January after having difficulty breathing at her home in the ritzy Brentwood neighbourhood of Los Angeles.
The 71-year-old, who starred in Beetlejuice and more recently in Apple TV's Hollywood satire show The Studio, was declared dead a short time later.
Honoree Catherine O'Hara accepts the TIFF Norman Jewison Career Achievement Award from Eugene Levy onstage at the TIFF Tribute Awards during the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival at The Fairmont Royal York Hotel on September 07, 2025 in Toronto, Ontario.
Jemal Countess/Getty Images/AFP
The actress's death certificate said she had died of a pulmonary embolism and listed rectal cancer as a secondary factor.
O'Hara was born in Toronto in 1954, where she joined the legendary comedy theater Second City, alongside Eugene Levy, with whom she would collaborate throughout her career, including on the smash TV series Schitt's Creek.
Her break into movies came in 1980 with Double Negative - also alongside Levy, and John Candy.
In 1988, she played Winona Ryder's stepmother in Tim Burton's Beetlejuice. She would later marry the film's production designer Bo Welch. The couple had two sons, Matthew and Luke.
But it was in 1990 that she became widely known to a global audience, as the mother of Macaulay Culkin's Kevin in Home Alone.
She would reprise the role in the film's sequel, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, which featured a cameo from Donald Trump, decades before he would become US president.
In 1993 she collaborated again with Burton on The Nightmare Before Christmas.
The versatile comedienne also appeared in British filmmaker Christopher Guest's mockumentaries that revel in silly spectacles of Americana, like zany dog handlers in Best in Show, vain folk singers in A Mighty Wind, and award-hungry actors in For Your Consideration
But she is perhaps best known by modern audiences for her role in Schitt's Creek, created by Eugene Levy's son, Dan Levy.
The role brought her an Emmy for best lead actress in 2020. She was also awarded a Golden Globe and a SAG Award.
