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Actress and comedian Catherine O'Hara, best known for roles in Home Alone and Schitt's Creek and Second City Television, among numerous others, has reportedly died at the age of 71, two sources with direct knowledge confirmed to TMZ on Friday (January 30).
O'Hara's cause of death wasn't immediately made clear at the time of the report on Friday. The Toronto native began her comedy career as a cast member of The Second City in her hometown in 1974, working as an understudy to the late Gilda Radner until Radner left for Saturday Night Live and was part of the theatre troupe's sketch comedy show SCTV, which debuted in 1976, starring alongside numerous fellow comedy legends including John Candy, Martin Short, Rick Moranis, Harold Ramis, Joe Flaherty and her longtime collaborating partner Eugene Levy.
O'Hara made her film debut alongside Levy, Flaherty and Candy in Double Negative (1980) and had later roles in After Hours (1985) and Beetlejuice (1988) before playing Kate McCallister, the mother of Macaulay Culkin's Kevin McCallister, in Home Alone (1990) and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992). O'Hara and Levy would share the silver screen numerous times before playing the married couple Johnny and Moira Rose, with Levy's son Dan playing the Rose's son David and Annie Murphy playing their daughter Alexis, on the sitcom Schitt's Creek, which set records with all four winning major acting categories (Lead Actor/Actress and Supporting Actor/Actress), as well as sweeping all seven major comedy awards at the 72nd Prime Time Emmy Awards.