Catherine O’Hara Briefly Dated Future ‘Schitt’s Creek’ Co-Star Eugene Levy Before Meeting Husband Bo Welch
Catherine O’Hara has died at age 71.
The Home Alone star passed away at her home in Los Angeles on January 30 after a brief illness. She is survived by her husband, Bo Welch, their two children, Matthew and Luke, and her six siblings.
Catherine O’Hara met her husband Bo Welch on the set of ‘Beetlejuice’
O’Hara and Welch met when both were working on the 1988 movie Beetlejuice. She played Delia Deetz. He was a production designer on the film.
The pair had director Tim Burton to thank for their relationship, O’Hara told InStyle in 2018.
“I was grouching to Tim Burton about how this guy was talking to me all the time and never asking me out,” she shared. “We had a break between filming in Los Angeles and on location, and in that time, Tim told Bo that he should ask me out.”
“Our first day of shooting at the house was the day that Bo finally asked me out, so that’s what I see when I look at the scenes we shot there,” she added. “Matchmaking Tim Burton!”
Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara went on ‘one or two dates’
O’Hara and Welch were married for more than 30 years. But before she met her husband, she was briefly involved with her future Schitt’s Creek co-star Eugene Levy.
The two met in the 1970s when they were both performing at Second City Toronto, she said during an appearance on Watch What Happens Live.
“So, everybody at Second City theater tried to date everybody. Like, ‘He makes me laugh. I should go out with him,'” she told host Andy Cohen. “So, we did maybe one or two dates.”
O’Hara and Levy quickly realized that they weren’t meant to be a couple. But they remained friends. In addition to Schitt’s Creek, they co-starred in multiple Christopher Guest mockumentaries, including Best in Show, Waiting for Guffman, and A Mighty Wind. In the latter, they played Mitch Cohen and Mickey Crabbe, a former husband-and-wife singing duo who reunite for a tribute concert.
Levy explained how his and O’Hara’s long friendship improved their creative work in a 2015 interview with The Hollywood Reporter.
“We’ve known each other for such a long time that it’s just a comfortable relationship,” he said. “And when you’re doing comedy, number one, you do want to work with the best people. It’s hard when you’re not working with the best people, so the bottom line is you want really good people who are quite skilled at this particular kind of comedy, [which is] character work. Quite honestly, it’s so much fun working with her, [but I also] know I’m working with the best person I could hire for the role.”
O’Hara told Cohen she and Levy were able to enjoy a strong working partnership because their brief romance quickly fizzled.
“He’s a gentleman, [he] has always been a gentleman,” she said. “And we get to have this working relationship because we didn’t go anywhere.”
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