Catherine O'Hara

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Catherine O'Hara
Birth name	Catherine Anne O'Hara
Born	March 4 1954 (1954-03-04) (age 54) Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Years active	1974 - present
Spouse(s)	Bo Welch (1992-present) (2 sons)

Catherine Anne O'Hara (born March 4, 1954) is a Canadian-American actress and comedian. She is well known for her comedy work on SCTV, roles as Delia Deetz in Beetlejuice, Kate McCallister in Home Alone, Sally in The Nightmare Before Christmas and the series of mockumentary films written and directed by Christopher Guest and his frequent co-stars.

Career

She started her acting career in 1974 as a cast member of The Second City in Toronto. Two years later, this theatre troupe created the television series SCTV, on which she became a regular performer. Memorable O'Hara characterizations on the show included Las Vegas scorcher (I wanna bear your children!) Lola Heatherton, buzzer-happy game show contestant Margaret Meehan, raunchy nightclub comedian Dusty Towne, soap opera seductress Sue Ellen and stage actress Sue Bopper Simpson. In the late 1970s, she did various voice-overs for a number of cartoons, which would continue throughout her career. She was hired to replace Ann Risley when Saturday Night Live was being retooled in 1981 following Jean Doumanian's disastrous stint as executive producer. However, she quit the show without ever having made an appearance on it, primarily due to her shock after witnessing a long, loud diatribe by SNL writer Michael O'Donoghue. Her SNL position was then given to fellow Canadian Robin Duke, who had also replaced O'Hara for a season on SCTV. She had a role in The Last of the High Kings as a staunch Irish nationalist in 1970s Dublin. In 2006, she starred in her fourth Christopher Guest film, For Your Consideration (following Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, and A Mighty Wind). On June 9, 2007, she was inducted into the Canadian Walk of Fame.

Personal life

O'Hara was born in Toronto, Ontario to a large Irish Catholic family.^[1] A naturalized U.S. citizen,^[2]she married director Bo Welch in 1992 and have two sons, born in 1994 and 1997. She is the sister of singer-songwriter Mary Margaret O'Hara, though she is a singer-songwriter in her own right, having written and performed songs in the 2003 film A Mighty Wind. She has dextrocardia.^[3]

Celebrities impersonated by O'Hara on SCTV

Filmography

References

External links

• Catherine O'Hara at the Internet Movie Database
• Catherine O'Hara at the Voice Chasers Database