Inspiring a generation of comedians is part of Catherine O’Hara’s legacy, local performers say

Catherine O’Hara created unique characters on stage and screen, inspiring contemporaries. But the Canadian-born comedian and ensemble improviser, who passed away last week was also known for her kindness, and the outpouring on the internet following the news of her death testifies to the impact she had on fans and entertainment professionals alike.

Her legacy includes influencing Chicago performers and the local comedy and theater communities.

One of those performers is actor, writer and producer Holly Wortell.

“She was an influence on so many comedians from my era,” she said in a phone interview.

Among mainstream moviegoers, O’Hara is best known for playing the suburban Chicago mom of Macaulay Culkin’s 8-year-old character in “Home Alone” (1990) and “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York” (1992). She had bigger, more critically acclaimed roles on the big screen in the indie mockumentaries “Waiting for Guffman” (1996), “Best in Show” (2000), “A Mighty Wind” (2003) and “For Your Consideration” (2006). Recent small screen turns were on “Schitt's Creek,” for which she won the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series in 2020, and “The Studio.”

O’Hara got her start in 1974 in the Toronto company of Chicago-based Second City. Two years later she appeared on “SCTV,” a satiric show set in the broadcast day of a fictional station in the fictional Melonville. In Chicago and other U.S. cities, it played in the slot after “Saturday Night Live,” which she hosted in 1991 and 1992.

“‘SCTV’ was almost like this fabulous secret thing that you're watching at night that you’re like, does anyone know this is on?” Wortell said. She first caught the late-night comedy series as a freshman at New Trier West in Northfield in the 1980s. “You almost didn't realize there were only two women: Andrea Martin and Catherine O’Hara. Because they played so many characters, it almost seemed like there were more women in the cast. She was an influence on so many comedians from my era.”

“Honestly, I found my passion in life at 14,” said Wortell, who started at Second City ETC in 1988 and then joining the mainstage cast a year later. “I got hired at Second City, a month after graduating from college.”

Susan Messing, readying for another international comedy tour with John Lehr, shares a similar O’Hara-inspired origin story as Wortell. “When I was a child [in Short Hills, New Jersey], I was watching ‘SCTV’ and she was incandescent. The apparent innocence of someone like a Catherine O'Hara gave her permission to say things that were surreptitious or ridiculous.”

“If you are somebody who ends up in comedy as a woman, and you don't know about Catherine O'Hara, something's probably missing in your education,” argued Messing, a Northwestern University alum who majored in theater and joined Second City in the late ’90s. She now teaches improv to University of Chicago undergraduates.

“I would say in particular for the female performers, Catherine was such a huge role model because back in her day, it was very much a boys club,” noted Kelly Leonard, vice president of creative strategy, innovation and business development at Second City, in a phone interview. “I really had the pleasure over the last few years of being able to sit in a room with her on Second City Artistic Advisory Board and talk about her experience at Second City. It was incredible. She was such a gifted actress and comedian, but, like, just the most kind, generous human being.”

“That board room, by the way,” added Leonard, “had Stephen Colbert, Steve Carell, Tina Fey, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Keegan Michael Key, Catherine, Jane Lynch and Jason Sudeikis. But Catherine and Julia Dreyfus — I remember Sam Richardson called them The Assassins — because they would just wait to have everyone else do their little bit and then they would throw whatever barb that they had, which would completely, you know, floor the room.”

O’Hara dazzled David Cerda when he first tuned into “SCTV” as a Hammond, Indiana, teen in the late ’70s. Just like Wortell and Messing, the Chicago performer got schooled. “That show made me see comedy was more than just standing on stage and telling jokes. You could actually create characters, and be those characters, and go to such an absurd level. It really, really opened my mind. Comedy could be smart and funny, and make a social commentary.”

In 2001, Cerda formed Hell in a Handbag Productions, where he performs and serves as artistic director of the theater nonprofit that specializes in camp parody of pop culture.

“For me, losing Catherine O’Hara was like when David Bowie died,” Cerda said in a phone interview. “A huge influence on my life and just seeing the social media posts about her is comforting to me because I see so many people felt the same way. I always thought she was a comedy god. For me, she wasn’t about being the ‘Home Alone’ woman.”