Catherine O’Hara Cause of Death Revealed

Catherine O’Hara’s cause of death has been revealed after the beloved actress died on Jan. 30 at 71.

The Home Alone and Schitt’s Creek actress died from a pulmonary embolism, according to O’Hara’s death certificate, obtained by TMZ on Monday. A contributing cause was listed as rectal cancer, which the star had been living with for months, as per the certificate.

O’Hara died at a Santa Monica, Calif., hospital and was cremated, with her remains being given to her longtime husband, Bo Welch, as per TMZ. O’Hara’s agency, CAA, previously confirmed to Variety that she had died at home after a “brief illness.”

The Toronto-born actress broke out with her roles as Kevin McCallister’s mom in the holiday classic Home Alone and as Delia Deetz in Beetlejuice, a role she reprised for the 2024 sequel.

In recent years, O’Hara became best known for her role as Moira Rose in Schitt’s Creek, which she played from 2015 to 2020 and which earned her six Canadian Screen Awards for Best Lead Actress in a Comedy Series.

O’Hara was also nominated 10 times for an Emmy Award throughout her career, winning twice — once for her role on Schitt’s Creek in 2020 and once for her work on SCTV Network in 1982. Last year, the actress earned two nominations for her roles as Patty Leigh on Apple TV’s The Studio and Gail in HBO’s The Last of Us.

Macaulay Culkin, who played Kevin in Home Alone, was one of the many of O’Hara’s friends and colleagues to pay tribute to her following her death, writing in an emotional Instagram post, “Mama. I thought we had time. I wanted more. I wanted to sit in a chair next to you. I heard you but I had so much more to say. I love you. I’ll see you later.”

O’Hara’s Schitt’s Creek co-star and frequent collaborator Eugene Levy said in a statement to PEOPLE that “words seem inadequate to express the loss I feel today.”

“I had the honor of knowing and working with the great Catherine O’Hara for over fifty years,” Levy continued. “From our beginnings on the Second City stage, to SCTV, to the movies we did with Chris Guest, to our six glorious years on Schitt’s Creek, I cherished our working relationship, but most of all our friendship. And I will miss her. My heart goes out to Bo, Matthew, Luke, and the entire O’Hara family.”

Catherine is survived by her husband Bo, their two sons, Matthew and Luke, and her siblings, Michael O’Hara, Mary Margaret O’Hara, Maureen Jolley, Marcus O‘Hara, Tom O’Hara and Patricia Wallice.