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Home Alone director Chris Columbus is remembering the late Catherine O’Hara’s legacy after her shocking death.
“Today, we lost Catherine O’Hara. I’m stunned and heartbroken, along with the rest of the world,” Columbus, 67, wrote via Instagram on Friday, January 30. “I was an obsessive fan of Catherine’s brilliant comedic work on SCTV and was thrilled when she agreed to play Kevin’s Mom in Home Alone.”
He continued, “What most people don’t realize is that Catherine carries the weight of 50% of that film. The movie simply would not work without her extraordinary performance. Catherine grounds the picture with a profound emotional depth. I will miss her greatly.”
Us Weekly confirmed earlier on Friday that O’Hara died at age 71.
“Prolific multi-award-winning actress, writer and comedian Catherine O’Hara died today at her home in Los Angeles following a brief illness,” O’Hara’s agency, Creative Artists Agency, wrote in a statement to Us. “A private celebration of life will be held by the family.”
O’Hara famously starred as the mom of Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin) in 1990’s Home Alone and its 1992 sequel, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. In the years since wrapping the Home Alone movies, O’Hara kept in touch with Culkin, 45.
“He’s just a lovely young man,” O’Hara exclusively told Us Weekly in January 2025 of her movie son. “I just care about him. I care for him. I care about him. I’m so happy that he’s doing so well. … He’s got a lovely family, his own little family that he’s starting [with partner Brenda Song]. He is a sweet young man.”
She continued, “He’s still got the same face up close. It’s like, ‘Oh, my God. I’m still looking at that little 8-year-old.’ He is funny. Always was. I just love [him]. I’m just really happy for him.”
O’Hara even supported Culkin when he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2023.
“This beautiful 10-year-old little boy was called a superstar, a moneymaker, one of the hottest leading young men in Hollywood,” she said in her speech at the time. “How does anyone survive that? I believe you’d have to possess a certain quality, a gift that dear John Hughes obviously recognized in Macaulay.”
After O’Hara’s death, Culkin offered an emotional tribute via social media.
“Mama. I thought we had time,” he wrote via Instagram. “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 is survived by her husband, Bo Welch, and their two sons.
“I’m with my family as much as I can be,” O’Hara previously told 519 magazine of balancing her career with motherhood. “In deciding what work I might get involved in for my whole working life, my family’s always come first. I have two sons, and when they were babies, I thought, ‘What’s the point? What’s the point of having children if I’m not going to be with them?’ That was always [the] No. 1 consideration and always will be.”
