Inside Catherine O’Hara and Eugene Levy’s Charming 50-Year Friendship: A Comedy Partnership for the Ages, From ‘SCTV’ to ‘Schitt’s Creek’
The late O'Hara was beloved for her role on 'Schitt's Creek'—and her partnership with costar Levy went back decades
When Catherine O’Hara died on January 30 at age 71, countless fans mourned her singular screen presence and comedic talent. The actress, who stole scenes in ’80s and ’90s classics like Beetlejuice and Home Alone and brought a delightfully manic energy to largely improvised ’00s comedies like Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show and A Mighty Wind, had a long and varied career, and earned her biggest audience as the brilliantly batty Moira Rose on the sitcom Schitt’s Creek from 2015 to 2020.
O’Hara’s passing hits particularly hard considering that Schitt’s Creek brought her a new generation of admirers, leading her to be busier than ever in recent years, with roles in hit shows like The Last of Us and The Studio and movies like The Wild Robot and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. In Schitt’s Creek, O’Hara delighted audiences with her over-the-top line deliveries and wild wardrobe, and her rapport with her considerably more down-to-earth husband, Johnny Rose, played by Eugene Levy, was a joy to watch.
O’Hara and Levy’s comic chemistry was real, as they’d been working together for over 40 years, having begun their careers as members of the Second City comedy troupe in the ’70s, which led to their TV breakout in the sketch comedy series SCTV. Read on to learn all about their decades-long friendship and many creative collaborations.
The Second City years: A comedy partnership is born
Catherine O’Hara and Eugene Levy began working together as members of The Second City Toronto, a world-renowned comedy improv theater, in 1974. O’Hara started as an understudy for none other than future Saturday Night Live star Gilda Radner, and in addition to Levy, her fellow Second City members (and later, SCTV castmates) included comedy icons like Andrea Martin, John Candy, Rick Moranis and Martin Short.
Looking back at her early days with Levy, O’Hara told The New Yorker, “We tried dating, actually. There’s nothing sexier than making each other laugh. I think everybody tried dating everybody.” It turned out romance wasn’t in the cards for the two comedians, and she added, “I’m so glad it worked out that way. We probably wouldn’t be working together if we’d gone longer on the dating. Really, it was, like, one or two dates. That’s it. Back then, Eugene and I were never really a ‘team.’ Just somehow we’ve grown together in these years.”
In 1976, O’Hara and Levy, along with their fellow Second City members, made their TV debut on SCTV. The quirky series was seen as Canada’s answer to Saturday Night Live and developed cult-favorite status in the U.S. throughout the late ’70s and early ’80s. On SCTV, O’Hara impersonated a wide range of celebrities, including Brooke Shields, Lucille Ball, Katharine Hepburn, Joan Crawford and Elizabeth Taylor, and created a number of fabulously funny characters who would pave the way for Moira Rose.
SCTV ran until 1984, and decades later, when O’Hara and Levy worked together on Schitt’s Creek, Levy credited their comic staying power to “the Second City sensibility we share,” in an interview with Vulture, and said, “Catherine and I approach the work in the same way.”
Becoming improv’s most dynamic duo in the ’90s and ’00s
In 1996, O’Hara and Levy were in Waiting for Guffman, a mockumentary about a small town amateur theater company, directed by and starring Spinal Tap’s Christopher Guest. As a filmmaker, Guest became known for working repeatedly with ensemble casts and using improvisation as the primary mode of comedy—and his offbeat approach provided an excellent showcase for the two former SCTV stars.
O’Hara and Levy hilariously played a couple who enter their beloved terrier in a dog show in Guest’s 2000 mockumentary Best in Show, and in 2003, they played a former ’60s folk duo with a long romantic history in his mockumentary A Mighty Wind. They then appeared together in For Your Consideration, Guest’s 2006 satire of Hollywood egos during awards season.
Best in Show and A Mighty Wind marked the first time O’Hara and Levy played a couple, and Levy told Vulture, “There was a lot of exposure with those two movies, and in A Mighty Wind, it was funny, but the relationship had a very strong emotional underpinning as well. So I guess people walked away from that movie thinking, Oh, this is a great pair. I love it when these people pair up together.”
A beloved couple with a long history on ‘Schitt’s Creek’
O’Hara and Levy had their most popular collaboration playing Moira and Johnny Rose, a formerly wealthy couple who relocate to a motel in the titular town after losing their fortune in Schitt’s Creek. The show was a family affair, as it was created by Levy and his son, Dan, and Dan also played their son, David, on the show.
Moira, a former soap star with a penchant for wigs and wacky accessories, was a perfect match for O’Hara’s comedic style, and the character was written with her in mind. As Levy sweetly said in the Vulture interview, “She was our first choice, yes. She’s always our first choice.”
In a 2016 interview with People, when asked if they had any idea they’d still be working together 40 years after Second City, O’Hara responded, “Isn’t that crazy? No, I had no idea I’d even be alive! It’s just nice to be alive, let alone working with my dear friend,”—a particularly poignant statement in light of her recent passing, while Levy said, “Yeah, it’s nice to be working period, but it’s pretty amazing, A lot of friendships were formed back at that time when we started.”
Offscreen, O’Hara was married to production designer Bo Welch, whom she met during the making of Beetlejuice, from 1992 until her death, and they had two sons, Matthew and Luke. Even though she was happily married to someone else, O’Hara told People that she and Levy were easily able to channel the energy of a long-married couple onscreen, saying, “I would love to think that we continue to challenge each other like a good married couple would do, and there are still many things that we don’t know about each other that we’re still discovering.”
Eugene Levy’s sweet tribute to Catherine O’Hara: ‘I cherished our working relationship, but most of all our friendship’
Catherine O’Hara and Eugene Levy had a comedy partnership for the ages, and following her death, he issued a heartfelt statement reading, “Words seem inadequate to express the loss I feel today. I had the honor of knowing and working with the great Catherine O’Hara for over fifty years. From our beginnings on the Second City stage, to SCTV, to the movies we did with Chris Guest, to our six glorious years on Schitt’s Creek, I cherished our working relationship, but most of all our friendship. And I will miss her. My heart goes out to Bo, Matthew, Luke and the entire O’Hara family.”
Catherine O’Hara will be deeply missed, but her many hilarious projects with Eugene Levy will forever make us laugh.
Conversation
All comments are subject to our Community Guidelines. Woman's World does not endorse the opinions and views shared by our readers in our comment sections. Our comments section is a place where readers can engage in healthy, productive, lively, and respectful discussions. Offensive language, hate speech, personal attacks, and/or defamatory statements are not permitted. Advertising or spam is also prohibited.
