So Long, Catherine O'Hara

SCTV was not only the most brilliant show to come out of Canada, it was one of the best of all time to come out of anywhere.

It started as a low-budget satire revue shot in a TV studio in Toronto. The money got bigger. The writing got sharper. And the cast was terrific.

How can you not marvel at the performance of Catherine O’Hara as Lola Heatherton? Or her tribute (as I like to think of it) to bawdy women nightclub comedians of the ‘50s as Dusty Towne?

She’s gone now. Age 71.

O’Hara’s performances 50 years ago—before Canadian-content hungry Global put Second City Television on the air—were noticed by the press in, and near, the Centre of the Universe (that’s Toronto, for you non-Canadians). Here’s part of a story from the Toronto Star of July 17, 1976 where she explains how she developed her characters and routines, some of them later ending up on SCTV.

Second City’s second best work hard while waiting for a star to break a leg
By TRISH CRAWFORD
Star staff writer
THURSDAY night is nutsy night for Catherine O'Hara. For years her parents went out to bingo games on Thursdays and the seven children in the family, left to their own devices for the evening, whomped up some pretty crazy comedy for entertainment.
O'Hara, 22, who has been a member of Toronto's kooky Second City troupe for two years now, believes her comedy training started at home.
Like the time one of the clan was having a birthday party and they all agreed to scream their lungs out when the birthday boy blew out the candles.
Sense of comedy
"We all have a good sense of comedy. Sometimes we'd get a tape recorder and pass it around so everyone told a joke. We'd get hysterical."
She remembers painting her face all crazy colors and then walking nonchalantly over to the table, where the family was quietly munching dinner.
Practical jokes like having stuffed pant legs protruding from the covers of her parents' bed got all the kids in on the act, she said.
"I'm sure my older sister lost more boyfriends that way." said O'Hara, who added in a recent interview that after a while her sister wised up and started warning her dates in advance that perhaps the evening at home would be a little unusual to say the least.
O'Hara says she draws on all her experiences for the improvisational theatre that goes on at the Old Firehall Theatre. The Second City troupe does improvisations at 11 p.m. after the regular show, For a Good Time Call 363-1674.
Straight face
The improvisations are used as the basis for their comedy shows and O'Hara says she sometimes has difficulty keeping a straight face during some of their crazier moments.
"You're always learning here. Whatever you see, people you meet, situations you find yourself in, they stick in your mind. To have the chance to go somewhere that night and act them out is great."
Not that it's always easy.
"Comedy is tough. You have to act or you don't get the laughs. There's a lot of pathos and dramatic moments in a lot of Second City scenes."
Although O'Hara's family may have known right from the start that they had a comedienne on their hands, it wasn't quite so self-evident to others.
Fresh out of high school, she took a waitress' job and auditioned to join the Touring Company (also called Second Best). This company of young comedians-in-training fill in on Sunday nights when the resident troupe has the night off, attends workshops and rehearsals and understudies the resident members.
It took two shots before O'Hara joined the touring group, but only our months later she got her big chance in Chicago. . . .
Much pleasure
“The Touring Company have their moment on Sunday night,” said O’Hara. “You have so much pleasure there. You do what you believe in, hoping someone will see you, and still enjoying yourself.”
She said she’s making a good living with the children’s television series, Coming Up Rosie, but she isn’t contemplating leaving Second City.
She recently returned from a few days off and, when she returned early from her vacation, she really didn’t know what to do with herself.
“It was strange to be in the city with the play going on and not be in the performance.”

The TV Times newspaper supplement profiled her in its cover story of November 19, 1975.

SHE IS PICKING HER SPOTS
WESSLEY HICKS
National Editor, TV Times
Catherine O'Hara figures she is going places by staying where she is. She is running on a spot and letting other spots come to her.
Cathie, who is 22, is the reigning comedienne of The Second City troupe, a zany quintet which displays remarkable comedic talent at the Old Firehall Theatre on Adelaide Street in Toronto. The Old Firehall has two diningrooms and the theatre which occupies the space where the fire trucks were parked. There is rarely a night when there is a vacancy in the 200-seat playhouse, and rarely a moment when it is not filled with laughter.
"You learn so much about the theatre, because we do the writing, the acting, the editing, the revising," Cathie says. "I'd be very leery about moving from the Second City company because everything that has happened to me while I've been there has been good. Even my old high school principal treats me with respect."
One of the good happenings has been that she appears regularly as a member of the cast of Coming Up Rosie, the sophisticated kids' show which is televised on the CBC network. Another is that the Global network has booked The Second City company for a monthly TV show until January, 1977, when it will be scheduled weekly. ABC in the U.S. is looking hard at the show and it may make its debut on that network early in 1977.
She recently completed a pilot for a new CBC sitcom series entitled The Rimshots, the saga of four comedians who live together. That show is tentatively scheduled to go on the air in March 1977. If the kid continues to garner new shows, she will soon need a network of her own.
Then there are the commercials, and she does several. Finally, there is the principal of Burnhamthorpe high school in Etobicoke, a suburb of Toronto, where Cathie was exposed to scholarship. From Grade 11 to Grade 13, she studied theatre art and undoubtedly some of that clung to her.
Recently, she returned to the school for a class reunion, and was accorded a rare honor. "The principal let me cut the anniversary cake," she says. "It was a very emotional moment."
When the school's distinguished graduate engaged in a no-holds-barred tussle with the big world in 1973, she was a hatcheck girl at the Old Firehall. She was quickly promoted to be a waitress, and began auditioning for the Second City company. She was consistently second, but her second-place finishes became so impressive that she was engaged as a performer in the Second City road show. Late in 1974, she was given a role as a regular in the company and ever since has been happily performing at the Old Firehall eight times a week.
She has natural talent as a comedienne. She has bright blue eyes, brown hair, a long-jawed face which is as pliable as a rubber glove, and a voice which just wraps itself lovingly around any character she is portraying. Second City, which opened in Chicago about 16 years ago, has a tradition for fashioning great comedians. David Steinberg, Alan Arkin, Barbara Harris, Shelley Berman, Elaine May and Mike Nicholls are some of the alumni. The company settled happily in Toronto about six years ago and has sent Dan Aykroyd and Gilda Radner to the Saturday Night Live Show in New York.
The format is unique. For the last hour of each show, the performers ask the audience for suggestions which could be based on book titles, occupations, or quotes. From those suggestions, they fashion skits in a few minutes, complete with dialogue, action, and even songs. The entire stage set consists of four very domestic-looking chairs.
But from the skits which blossom from the audiences' suggestions come the set pieces in the show. The result is a remarkably funny two hours of superb zaniness.
Catherine O'Hara is one of seven children and currently, she is living with her sister, Robin, who is her understudy at Second City. Since an understudy is given a chance to perform only when the principal is unable to go onstage, it is a situation fraught with peril. An ambitious understudy may resort to mayhem to advance her career.
However, Cathie believes that she has insurance against any mishaps. "I wear Robin's clothes a lot," she says. "Even when I go out, I wear her coat. And I bleed easily."

From this unscripted beginning sprang some great careers. O’Hara went on to comedy films and other endeavours, but I’ll remember her for a show from Toronto (and, later, Edmonton) with some truly remarkable talent.