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Improv comedy\u2019s golden rule is to say, \u201cYes, and \u2026\u201d to advance a scene partner\u2019s vision and raise the comedic stakes. Few understood this better than Catherine O\u2019Hara<\/a>, who died on Friday at age 71<\/a> after a brief illness. The Emmy and Golden Globe\u2013winning actor had a knack for executing a writer-director\u2019s vision, while remaining true to her singular sensibilities\u2014a star and<\/em> a team player all wrapped in one wildly entertaining performer.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy work alone if you don\u2019t have to?\u201d O\u2019Hara told The New Yorker<\/em><\/a> in 2019. Throughout her career, she stuck to that ethos, starting out with the Second City improv troupe in her native Toronto as an understudy for Gilda Radner in the 1970s. O\u2019Hara\u2019s cohort included many performers with whom she\u2019d later share the screen\u2014from her Home Alone<\/em> scene partner John Candy to frequent costar (and one-time real-life love interest<\/a>) Eugene Levy,<\/strong> who starred opposite O\u2019Hara in four Christopher Guest<\/strong> films (Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, A Mighty Wind,<\/em> and For Your Consideration<\/em>) before their Emmy-winning turns as eccentric husband-and-wife Johnny and Moira Rose on Schitt\u2019s Creek.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cMy crutch was, in improvs: when in doubt, play insane,\u201d O\u2019Hara said to The New Yorker.<\/em> \u201cBecause you didn\u2019t have to excuse anything that came out of your mouth. It didn\u2019t have to make sense.\u201d Yet, even the most far-fetched women\u2014perhaps Home Alone<\/em>\u2019s forgetful Kate McAllister chief among them\u2014felt undeniably human in the hands of O\u2019Hara. After Second City, she helped create the sketch show SCTV,<\/em> Canada\u2019s answer to Saturday Night Live.<\/em> When the series ended in 1984, O\u2019Hara popped up in supporting roles like Martin Scorsese<\/strong>\u2019s After Hours<\/em> (1985), and Heartburn<\/em> (1986), directed by Mike Nichols. But O\u2019Hara\u2019s real calling, she told Vulture<\/em><\/a> in 2019, was \u201cplaying people who have no real sense of the impression they\u2019re making on anyone else.\u201d<\/p>\n That description was fitting of Delia Deetz, yuppie wicked stepmother to Winona Ryder<\/strong>\u2019s macabre Lydia in Tim Burton<\/strong>\u2019s Beetlejuice<\/em> (1988). O\u2019Hara met her husband, the film\u2019s production designer Bo Welch,<\/strong> while making the movie. Her ability to screech \u201cDay-O!\u201d<\/a> then lead a conga line of haunted dinner guests through a dance number in her abstractly decorated home left an impression. Burton and O\u2019Hara made three more movies together, including the 2024 Beetlejuice<\/em> sequel, as well as stop-motion films The Nightmare Before Christmas<\/em> (1993) and Frankenweenie<\/em> (2012), in which \u201cWeird Girl\u201d was one of three characters she voiced for the feature.<\/p>\n