“Schitt’s Creek” star Catherine O’Hara‘s cause of death has been revealed, less than two weeks after the actress died at home in Los Angeles. She was 71.
O’Hara, who shot to fame while starring in the Tim Burton movie “Beetlejuice,” died of a pulmonary embolism, according to a death certificate released by the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office.
Rectal cancer was also listed as the underlying cause of death on the certificate, which notes that O’Hara was cremated and her remains were given to her husband, Bo Welch.
O’Hara’s Jan. 30 death was confirmed by her spokesperson, who told Rolling Stone that the actress died at home following a brief, unspecified illness. The actress had not previously shared any health diagnoses with the public.
O’Hara, who was born in Toronto, rose to prominence in the late 1970s while starring in the sketch comedy show “Second City Television.” However, it was her roles in several major blockbuster movies—including the “Home Alone” franchise, “Beetlejuice,” and “After Hours”—that really propelled her to stardom.
While the actress worked steadily throughout her career, she saw a major professional resurgence after landing the role of Moira Rose in the Canadian comedy series “Schitt’s Creek,” which also starred Eugene Levy; Levy’s son, Dan Levy; and Annie Murphy.
O’Hara is survived by her two adult sons, Matthew and Luke, as well as her husband, whom she wed in 1992, having moved from Canada to California to pursue her relationship with the production designer, whom she met on the set of “Beetlejuice.”
“I was in ‘Beetlejuice,’ and the production designer, Bo Welch, was very attractive, and he finally asked me out,” she told The New Yorker in 2019. “We went on location at the end of the movie, and we started dating. I moved to L.A. to be with him. Yeah, I moved for love.”
The couple welcomed their first son, Matthew, in 1994, the same year they purchased a picturesque Los Angeles home for $1.25 million. Their second child, Luke, was born in 1997.
O’Hara and Welch, who has been nominated for four Academy Awards, began dating soon after filming began on “Beetlejuice.” The actress later revealed that their romance was first sparked by director Tim Burton, who encouraged his production designer to ask her out.
“I was grouching to Tim Burton about how this guy was talking to me all the time and never asking me out,” she recalled to InStyle in 2018. “We had a break between filming in Los Angeles and on location, and in that time, Tim told Bo that he should ask me out.”
As a result, O’Hara confessed that she had particularly fond memories of the “Beetlejuice” set, including the Vermont mansion that served as the primary set—and was the location where Welch finally got up the courage to ask her on a date.
“Our first day of shooting at the house was the day that Bo finally asked me out, so that’s what I see when I look at the scenes we shot there,” she shared.
She later confessed to Elle that she knew almost instantly that Welch was the man she was destined to marry.
“I actually wrote in a diary, ‘We’re supposed to get married someday, so I wish he would ask me out,'” she said in 2024.
While O’Hara lived much of her adult life in Los Angeles, she remained closely connected to her Canadian roots, even crediting her home nation for her quick wit and comedic abilities.
During a 2020 interview with Rolling Stone, O’Hara noted that Canadians “not only have a sense of humor about others, but also about themselves, which I think is the healthiest and best kind of sense of humor to have.
“And there’s an edge to it,” she went on. “But with compassion and love. It’s a good, dark sense of humor, too, in there just because of an awareness of the world around you.”
O’Hara was given a brilliant opportunity to spotlight Canadian comedy in “Schitt’s Creek,” which was filmed on location in Ontario and featured a cast made up largely of local actors.
The series, which originally premiered on Canadian TV network CBC, earned international acclaim, helping to launch O’Hara back into the global spotlight—and earning her a slew of award nominations and wins.
But the actress remained engaged with Canadian culture beyond her work on the big and small screens, recently hitting out at U.S. President Donald Trump over his suggestion that her home country should become America’s 51st state.
“God bless Canada. God bless Canadians,” she said when asked about his comments during an appearance on TheWrap’s “UnWrapped” podcast in 2025.
“The only good thing out of this is it’s unifying Canadians and building a little nationalism that they deserve … that we deserve.”
However, the actress noted that Trump’s comments had made her question whether she should continue to live in the U.S., explaining that it had prompted her to consider a return to Canada.
“Makes me just really want to be in Ontario, Canada, right now. It makes my skin crawl,” she confessed.
In that interview, O’Hara also opened up about how her sons had followed in her husband’s footsteps, working behind the scenes on the sets of movies and TV shows. She added that their skills were helpfully transferred to the renovations of her Los Angeles home.
“One of [my sons] was doing set construction in Los Angeles, but it really died off with the [actors’] strike [in 2023],” she explained. “We were getting part of our house renovated, and our son is working with the contractor.
“He’s been doing that for a year and a half, and he’s learned how to build things that have to stand the test of time, which is pretty great. He would like to get back into set construction, but there just wasn’t any work.
“And our younger son is in Vancouver. He’s a set dresser,” she added. Her younger child had worked on one of her more recent projects, “The Last of Us.”