No doubt everyone will be posting pictures of Moira Rose everywhere - and deservedly so. It was a stellar character who could have been played by no one else. Ever.
Me? I was the kid in high school who would rather stay home on Saturday nights to see SCTV.
That show was always a moving target of time and station, depending who gave them funding or was airing the show. Every season could be different. You had to want it. But a better cast of folks could not have been assembled.
Arguably, women on SCTV were underrepresented, but that made O'Hara and Andrea Martin that much more indispensable.
She had great characters on that show - and then subsequently in other shows and in movies.
O'Hara shined like almost no other in Christopher Guest's movies, each of her characters played perfectly - and almost always paired with SCTV alum and Schitt's Creek husband Eugene Levy. They performed together for almost 50 years.
If you haven't seen Martin Charles Scorses's After Hours you should. It's almost 40 years old, but I think it might have been the first thing outside of SCTV I saw O'Hara in - and she's brilliant. She was also the voice on the far too short lived The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley (I still have that lunch box, btw....).
One could go on and on regarding all her roles, but who has that kind of bandwidth? I'm sure there are blogs just dedicated to that, and that alone. And rightfully so.
It is for Moira Rose that she will be remembered, I believe. And what a way to be remembered. Iconic might be an understatement. I know people have talked of a reboot / update of Schitt's Creek, but hopefully that is off the table for good. There's no reason.
Should you have not watched SCTV back in the day, go to YouTube and watch some skits. They didn't all transfer well. Some are grainy but it still makes me laugh and smile.
....and if for nothing else, these days, scrolling clip to clip that anything could make me laugh or smile is something worth watching.
Catherine O'Hara had that power. I will miss her terribly.
.....and for fun, back in 2021, I posted a short film she and Martin did for the first David Letterman Film Festival (there were only two). It is brilliant - and linked here.
Song by: Crowded House
