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Catherine O’Hara’s cause of death has been officially released, less than two weeks after the beloved Home Alone and Schitt’s Creek star died at 71.
It was initially announced that O’Hara had died following a “brief illness,” according to her manager.
Now, TMZ reports that the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office published the actor’s death certificate Monday. It states that O’Hara’s immediate cause of death was a pulmonary embolism, a blood clot in her heart. Rectal cancer was listed as the underlying cause.
The death certificate also states that O’Hara has been cremated, with her remains given to her husband Bo Welch.
The Medical Examiner’s Office did not immediately return The Independent’s request for further details.
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Catherine O’Hara, who died in January at the age of 71, pictured attending the Primetime Emmys in September 2025 (Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)
Although O’Hara played a wide variety of characters in a career that spanned five decades, she was perhaps best known for playing mothers. She played Macaulay Culkin’s character Kevin’s mother, Kate McCallister, in the first two Home Alone films — spawning the viral “Kevin!” meme — before going on to play matriarch Moira Rose in hit TV series Schitt’s Creek.
Culkin was among those leading the tributes to his late co-star, writing on Instagram: “Mama. I thought we had time. I wanted more.”
Also paying his respects was Pedro Pascal, who worked with O’Hara in The Last of Us. He wrote: “Oh, genius to be near you. Eternally grateful. There is less light in my world, this lucky world that had you, will keep you, always.”
O’Hara recently earned Emmy nominations for her work on The Last of Us and The Studio — the ninth and tenth of her career.
Born in Toronto on March 4, 1954, O’Hara was the sixth of seven children. In 1974 she joined the cast of The Second City in Toronto, the improv comedy troupe that also helped launch the careers of John Candy, Dan Aykroyd and Gilda Radner.
In 1976, the company launched SCTV, a televised sketch comedy show, and O’Hara became a regular performer. After the show was picked up by NBC for broadcast in the U.S. it became known as SCTV Network 90, and O’Hara won her first Emmy in 1982 for Outstanding Writing on an episode titled “Moral Majority Show”.
During the 1980s, she landed a number of supporting roles in films including Martin Scorsese’s After Hours in 1985 and Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice in 1988. Decades later she reprised her role as Delia Deetz, mother to Winona Ryder’s Lydia Deetz, in the 2024 sequel Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.
The actor met her husband, production designer Bo Welch, on the set of Beetlejuice. Welch is known for his collaborations with Tim Burton, dating back to Edward Scissorhands. The couple married in 1992.
O’Hara is survived by Welch and their two sons, Matthew and Luke.