Catherine O’Hara’s Cause of Death Revealed for Schitt’s Creek Star
Acting legend Catherine O’Hara passed away late last month, and according to a new report, the cause of her death has now been determined.
According to a new report from TMZ that cited the legend’s death certificate, O’Hara died due to a pulmonary embolism, or a blood clot that had traveled to her lungs. The underlying cause listed on the certificate was rectal cancer, which O’Hara had been suffering from.
O’Hara passed away on January 30, 2026, at the age of 71. Born in 1954, O’Hara’s career in Hollywood began with the Canadian sketch comedy series Second City Television, per Variety. That show earned O’Hara her first PrimeTime Emmy Award, an accolade that she’d again win in 2020 for her performance in Schitt’s Creek.
O’Hara’s first credited Hollywood movie is 1980’s Nothing Personal. She then went on to star in 1980’s Double Negative and 1983’s Rock & Rule before playing the memorable role of Gail in Martin Scorsese’s After Hours, which was released in 1985.
Her stardom continued to rise after playing Delia Deetz in Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice, released in 1988. Just two years later, she starred as Kevin McCallister’s mom, Kate McCallister, in Home Alone. She reprised this role again in the sequel, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.
Following that, O’Hara voiced Sally in The Nightmare Before Christmas and appeared in movies such as 1994’s Wyatt Earp, 1996’s Waiting for Huffman, 1997’s Pippi Longstocking, 2000’s Best in Show, and 2004’s Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, among many other titles.
O’Hara’s career had a major renaissance in her 60s when she starred as Moira Rose in the popular Schitt’s Creek sitcom alongside Eugene Levy, Dan Levy, and Annie Murphy. She recently played Patty Leigh in the first season of The Studio and Gail Lynden in Season 2 of The Last of Us. Additionally, O’Hara reprised her Delia Deetz character in the Beetlejuice sequel, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, and voiced a character in the award-winning The Wild Robot movie released in 2024.
Source: Comingsoon.net