Formative Performances: Catherine O’Hara in “SCTV”

[Women’s History Month, Day 16]

This performer is my other favorite sketch comedy actress: Catherine O’Hara in SCTV. Like Andrea Martin, O’Hara played a wide variety of characters on the show, and no two characters were the same.

Here she is as Brooke Shields:

Here she is as Katherine Hepburn:

Here she is as Lola Heatherton in On the Waterfront Again (though she doesn’t appear until around minute 3, you should still watch the whole thing).

She was funny for a different reason than Andrea Martin was funny. You can see a little of Martin’s clownishness shine through each one of her performances, but O’Hara was a chameleon, disappearing into each one of her characters. She could play daffy, overacting Lola Heatherton as well as she could play an older Katherine Hepburn. Her impressionist skills were killer. I’m glad she’s continued to have a strong career, particularly in Christopher Guest movies, because she is truly gifted.