Twenty years ago I got to know Catherine O’Hara a little bit.
Already a fan from her appearances in Christopher Guest movies and work with Eugene Levy, I was knocked out.
The occasion was the British Film Festival in London for the premiere of Guest’s “For Your Consideration.”
O’Hara is simply brilliant — funny and sad — as an actress who is so persuaded to think that she might be an Oscar nominee that she gets herself a hideous facelift.
The audience at the premiere howled. But we wondered if O’Hara had done something to her own face. She assured us she had not, it was just something she’d managed to contort on camera.
She and Levy were such a subtle team that they went on to play husband and wife in “Schitt’s Creek.” O’Hara’s fine work as dimwitted former movie star Moira Rose earned her several awards including an Emmy. (She won two in her lifetime on 10 nominations.)
More recently, O’Hara stole the screen in “The Studio” and “The Last of Us” in much more dramatic roles. She could do anything, offering surprise after surprise.
I was lucky a couple of years ago to be walking in a Brentwood canyon, and ran into her. We laughed about “For Your Consideration” and all the fun she’d brought to movies and TV.
It’s heartbreaking and quite obvious from pictures she was gravely ill at last September’s Emmy Awards. Obviously whatever happened attacked her out of nowhere and quickly. Her family and friends mourn her, but her fans are bereft. Just 71 — you could only imagine another 15 years of Catherine O’Hara just getting better and better.
What a terrible shame. Thank you, Catherine.
Tributes:
Michael McKean: “Catherine’s knowledge of humanity was always at the center of her comedy, no matter how absurd the character or loopy the material. She could play heartless because she was warm, brainless because she was brilliant, careless because she truly cared. Everyone loved her and everyone learned from her. This is a deep loss.”
Dan Levy:
What a gift to have gotten to dance in the warm glow of Catherine O’Hara’s brilliance for all those years.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.
My heart goes out to Bo, Matthew, Luke and every member of her big, beautiful family.
