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Catherine O’Hara, Sally In ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ And Comedy Royalty, Dies At 71
Catherine O’Hara, the beloved Canadian actress whose comic voice was omnipresent on TV and in film for decades, has passed away at 71. She died in Los Angeles after a brief illness, according to her representatives.
Across more than half a century in entertainment, O’Hara built a career defined by versatility. Her physical comedy, impeccable improvisational timing, and uniquely expressive and vulnerable voice resonated as powerfully in animation as they did in live-action performance.
While widely recognized for her live-action roles, O’Hara quietly amassed a formidable animation résumé, showcasing remarkable range as a voice actor. Unlike many performers who treat voice work as secondary to on-camera roles, O’Hara brought the same professionalism and character focus to animation as she did to her film and television performances, and routinely praised the work of the artists who worked on the films in which she appeared.
“The beautiful thing about animation is that there is nothing there by chance,” she once said in an interview for DreamWorks’ The Wild Robot, in which she played Pinktail, the maternal opossum who plays a key role in the film’s familial narrative. “Nothing on the screen is there by chance, and no sound, voice, or dialogue is ever there by chance. Every second of it is thought about by people who do beautiful work and really care about what they’re doing.”
Her performance in Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) remains her best-known animation role, voicing Sally, the ragdoll heroine whose melancholy yearning and emotional intelligence ground the film’s otherwise fantastical world. O’Hara also performed Sally’s singing voice, giving the character vulnerability and sincerity that became central to the film’s enduring appeal.
“I like voicing characters for films and television. It’s challenging but fun,” O’Hara explained in a 2018 interview with Live for Films. “Recording Sally’s Song was intimidating. That song is beautiful and difficult to sing, but it’s been even more thrilling to sing the song live onstage with an orchestra while the audience watches the film.”
Burton posted a brief tribute to his regular collaborator after news of her passing became public, writing on Instagram:
Catherine, I love you .
This picture shows how much light you gave to all of us. You were a special part of my life and after life.
She continued to lend her talents to animation productions throughout the 1990s and 2000s. Her voice credits include Pippi Longstocking, Chicken Little, Over the Hedge, Where the Wild Things Are, The Critic, The Magic School Bus, and the haunted-house favorite Monster House, among others.
O’Hara’s collaboration with Burton resurfaced in Frankenweenie (2012), where she voiced multiple characters, again demonstrating impressive vocal flexibility and scoring an Annie Award nomination. She continued voice work in major studio releases into the 2020s, including roles in Pixar’s Elemental (2023) and DreamWorks’ The Wild Robot (2024).
Born March 4, 1954, in Toronto, O’Hara emerged from one of the most influential comedy communities in North America. She joined the Second City troupe in the 1970s and became a standout performer on the cult-favorite Canadian sketch comedy series SCTV, where she won an ensemble cast Emmy, working alongside an extraordinary generation that included Eugene Levy, John Candy, Andrea Martin, Joe Flaherty, and Rick Moranis.
Like many of her colleagues, O’Hara later moved into Hollywood studio films, delivering memorable performances in Beetlejuice and Christopher Guest’s ensemble comedies, including Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, and A Mighty Wind. For many viewers, however, she will always be Kate McCallister, the unforgettable mother in the perennial holiday favorite Home Alone and its sequel.
More recently, she reached a new generation of fans in Schitt’s Creek, starring alongside longtime collaborator Eugene Levy in the acclaimed series that ran from 2015 to 2020, earning her a second Emmy Award.
O’Hara is survived by her husband, Bo Welch, and their two sons.