Catherine O’Hara passed away ‘following a brief illness’ on January 30, and it has been claimed that the actress didn’t share details of her health condition with her friends
Catherine O’Hara passed away on January 30(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
Catherine O’Hara’s friends are said to be in “complete shock” after her death as she allegedly kept her health issues secret and didn’t open up about them.
The iconic star, who played Macaulay Culkin’s mother in the two Home Alone movies, passed away “following a brief illness” on Friday, according to a statement from her representatives at Creative Artists Agency. She was 71 years old.
A spokesperson for the LA Fire Department said that “at 4:48am [Friday] we responded to a request for medical aid.” A brief 911 audio recording appears to reveal dispatchers referring to Catherine having “difficulty breathing” before she was rushed to a hospital in LA in “serious” condition, where she later died.
READ MORE: Inside Catherine O’Hara’s amazing Hollywood love story with husband Bo Welch
Catherine in Home Alone(Image: Internet Unknown)
According to the Daily Mail, many of those closest to the actress were kept in the dark about her condition during her final days. Her representatives didn’t elaborate further on her condition and a cause of death has not been confirmed yet.
A source said the actress was spotted at SUR Restaurant in West Hollywood and she appeared “in great spirits” during the outing. Catherine suffered from Situs inversus, a rare congenital condition where major visceral thoracic and abdominal organs are reversed from their normal positions – for example, heart on the right and liver on the left.
The condition is typically harmless, but can make future complications more difficult to diagnose as symptoms may appear differently in people with mirrored organs.
There is no suggestions the condition contributed to Catherine’s death. The star is survived by her husband, Bo Welch, sons Matthew and Luke, and siblings Michael O’Hara, Mary Margaret O’Hara, Maureen Jolley, Marcus O’Hara, Tom O’Hara and Patricia Wallice.
Her role in Schitt’s Creek was iconic(Image: AP)
Catherine’s career was launched with the Second City comedy group in Toronto in the 1970s. It was there that she first worked with Eugene Levy, who would become a lifelong collaborator – and her Schitt’s Creek co-star.
The two would be among the original cast of the sketch show SCTV, short for Second City Television. The series, which began on Canadian TV in the 1970s and aired on NBC in the US, spawned a legendary group of esoteric comedians that Catherine would work with often, including Martin Short, John Candy, Andrea Martin, Rick Moranis and Joe Flaherty.
The star would win her first Emmy for her writing on the show. Her second, for best actress in a comedy series, came four decades later, for Schitt’s Creek. Her Home Alone co-star Macaulay was among those paying tribute to the actress after her death.
Sharing an image from Home Alone and a recent recreation of the same pose, the actor wrote: “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.”
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