Michael Keaton<\/a> has reflected on his decades-long friendship with Catherine O’Hara – a week after her shock death.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Michael Keaton was friends with Catherine O’Hara for decades<\/p>\n
The 74-year-old actor spoke about the legacy of the late star – who died aged 71 on January 30 – at Harvard University\u2019s Hasty Pudding Theatricals 2026 Man of the Year event in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on Friday (06.02.26).<\/p>\n
Michael – who famously worked with Catherine on the 1988 horror-fantasy film, Beetlejuice – started looking back by talking about how she shot to fame after appearing on the sketch comedy series Second City Television in the mid-1970s.<\/p>\n
He said: “I was a big SCTV fan. I am the biggest SCTV fan. And I\u2019m trying to think, when was it? I think I was doing a movie in Toronto … I remember we must have met or known each other a little bit, because, like myself, she has a big family. <\/p>\n
“She’s one of seven, and I’m one of seven. And so somehow we got to be friends.”<\/p>\n
\n“I remember a night in Toronto where she had a summer [with her] brothers and sisters, and we were all shooting pool in some bar somewhere. <\/p>\n
\n“But I think I had known her before, kind of having a hard time remembering it.”<\/p>\n
\nMichael added that he was a “giant fan” of Catherine and hailed the late actress – also known for appearing in Home Alone and Schitt’s Creek – as a “kind of a goddess” inside the comedy world.<\/p>\n
\nMichael said that others in the industry also “knew how brilliant she was and how great she was”.<\/p>\n
\nAs well as Beetlejuice, the pair went on to work with each other on the 2005 sports comedy movie Game 6 and then the Beetlejuice sequel in 2024.<\/p>\n
\nAnd Michael helped Catherine – whose cause of death has yet to be revealed – land the role of Lillian Rogan in Game 6.<\/p>\n
\nHe explained: “And I was doing this tiny little movie called Game 6, which is actually a really good little movie. It takes place in Boston, and [co-star] Griffin [Dunne] and I were talking, and they hadn’t cast it [yet]. <\/p>\n
\n“I said, ‘Hey, how [about] Catherine O’Hara as my ex-wife? Yeah, you think she’d do it?’ So I called her, and she came down.<\/p>\n
\n“I guess that was after the first Beetlejuice. But I knew her before that. And to answer your question, I don’t remember what the first time was when I met her, but we got to be friends in addition to just working together as well.”<\/p>\n
\nMichael was one of the first celebrities to pay tribute to Catherine – who is survived by her 74-year-old husband, production designer Bo Welch and their two adult sons, Matthew, 32, and 29 year old Luke – after her manager confirmed her death on January 30.<\/p>\n
\nCaptioning a photo of him and Catherine, he wrote on Instagram: “We go back before the first Beetlejuice. She\u2019s been my pretend wife, my pretend nemesis and my real life, true friend. This one hurts. Man am I gonna miss her. Thinking about Beau as well. (sic)”<\/p>\n
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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"8 February 2026 Michael Keaton has reflected on his decades-long friendship with Catherine O’Hara – a week after her shock death. Michael Keaton was friends with Catherine O’Hara for decades The 74-year-old actor spoke about the legacy of the late star – who died aged 71 on January 30 – at Harvard University\u2019s Hasty Pudding […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":221548,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[13115,5627],"class_list":{"0":"post-221547","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-make-up","8":"tag-catherine-o","9":"tag-michael-keaton"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221547\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}