Why Catherine O'Hara Quit “SNL” After a Week on the Job
- - Why Catherine O'Hara Quit “SNL” After a Week on the Job
Virginia ChamleeFebruary 1, 2026 at 10:00 PM
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a young Catherine O'Hara
NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty
Catherine O'Hara once joined the cast of Saturday Night Live, but quit before ever appearing in an episode of the show
Speaking to PEOPLE in an earlier interview, she explained that she left SNL to rejoin the cast of the Canadian comedy sketch show SCTV
O'Hara's manager confirmed on Friday, Jan. 30, that the actress had died at age 71
Catherine O’Hara once quit Saturday Night Live before ever appearing in an episode of the show.
O'Hara — who died Friday, Jan. 30 at age 71 — spoke to PEOPLE in 2024 about how she was cast on the sixth season of SNL in the early 1980s, but quit after a week.
She explained that prior to SNL, she’d already been in the cast of the Canadian comedy sketch show SCTV, though it wasn’t consistent work.
“Our producer would get a deal with a network, and we’d have a show for a season or two, and then that deal would go away. There’d be a break, then we’d do the show again,” she said.
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Second City troupers Joe Flaherty; Martin Short; Andrea Martin; Catherine O'Hara; Dave Thomas; Eugene Levy blew up the Old Firehall on Sunday; and Rita Zekas was there.
Gail Harvey/Toronto Star via Getty
During one break, “I got asked to be on Saturday Night Live. And of course I said yes. Who doesn’t want to do that?”
When she got word that SCTV was picked up again, she departed SNL without ever filming an episode. “Basically I said, ‘Oh, sorry, I gotta go be with my [comedy] family.’ ”
Looking back, O’Hara said she was “stupid” for not waiting longer to see if SCTV got picked up.
“Yeah, not cool to take a job and leave it. You know what I mean?” she says.
In the end, O’Hara’s best friend from high school, Robin Duke, took her SNL slot. “It all worked out the way it was supposed to,” says O’Hara.
SCTV ran from 1976 to 1984 and was an offshoot of Toronto’s famed Second City comedy troupe, where the late comedian Gilda Radner (who eventually left Second City for Saturday Night Live) got her start.
O’Hara acted as Radner's understudy on the show and, in a 2020 interview on Watch What Happens Live, said she learned from Radner "that you could still be the loveliest person in the world, and still be hilarious."
Gilda Radner (left), Catherine O'Hara
BCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty; Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty
"She was really a dreamy doll of a girl, just like you'd imagine," O'Hara added of Radner. "And I got to hang out with her, because my brother dated her. She'd come to our house for dinner on Sundays and play games with the family."
She continued: "I dared to take her place at Second City theater, and I've been imitating her since."
O'Hara's other costars on SCTV included John Candy, Martin Short, Rick Moranis, Joe Flaherty, Andrea Martin and Eugene Levy. She and Levy would go on to collaborate several more times — in Christopher Guest’s movies including Best in Show and in the television show Schitt's Creek.
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