Catherine O'Hara

Biography: Catherine O'Hara is a Canadian actress and comedian. She is well known for her appearances in many roles on the TV series SCTV, as well as for her film roles as Delia Deetz in Beetlejuice (1988), Kate McCallister in Home Alone (1990) and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992), Sally in The Nightmare Before Christmas and her various roles in the films of Christopher Guest. She started her acting career in 1974 as a cast member of The Second City in Toronto. In 1976, this theatre troupe created the television series SCTV, on which O'Hara became a regular performer. Memorable O'Hara characterizations on the show included Las Vegas scorcher 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, O'Hara 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 an unusually dramatic role in The Last of the High Kings as a staunch Irish nationalist in 1970s Dublin.

O'Hara married Bo Welch in 1992. They have two sons, born in 1994 and 1997. O'Hara 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 is a naturalized U.S. citizen.

O'Hara can next be seen in her fourth Christopher Guest film, For Your Consideration. (following Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show and A Mighty Wind).… Expand