Who Is Catherine O’Hara’s Husband? Her Marriage, Relationship With Eugene Levy & More
The entertainment industry lost an icon when Catherine O’Hara died on Friday, January 30. The actress died at the age of 71, according to TMZ.
At the time of her death, O’Hara had been in a relationship with husband Bo Welch for nearly 40 years. She met Welch in 1988, and their relationship flourished from there. Welch and O’Hara went on to start a family and build a life together.
Scroll down to learn more about O’Hara’s marriage and family with Welch. Plus, the truth about her romantic relationship with Eugene Levy, her longtime friend and costar.
Who is Bo Welch?
Welch is a production designer who has worked on major Hollywood movie sets. Throughout his career, Welch has been nominated for four Academy Awards for Best Production Design. The nominations were for The Color Purple, A Little Princess, The Birdcage, and Men in Black. He also received Emmy Award nominations for his work on A Series of Unfortunate Events and Schmigadoon!
Welch often collaborated with Tim Burton, most notably on the films Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, and Batman Returns. He also dabbled in directing, with directing credits on The Tick, The Cat in the Hat, and A Series of Unfortunate Events.
How did Catherine O’Hara and Bo Welch meet?
The couple met on the set of Beetlejuice. O’Hara starred in the Burton film, and Welch served as the production designer. O’Hara developed a crush on Welch while they were working together, and it was Burton who eventually facilitated their romance.
“I was grouching to Tim Burton about how this guy was talking to me all the time and never asking me out,” O’Hara told InStyle in 2018. “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.”
While they were shooting exterior scenes in Vermont, Welch finally asked the actress out. Their relationship continued after filming ended, and O’Hara even moved to Los Angeles to be with her man. “Yeah, I moved for love,” she told The New Yorker in 2019. They married on April 25, 1992.
Did Catherine O’Hara have kids?
Yes, O’Hara shared two sons with Welch. Their eldest child, Matthew, was born in 1994, followed by Luke in 1997.
Per a Vanity Fair interview with O’Hara, Matthew and Luke work as set dressers and in set construction. They both worked with their mom on Schitt’s Creek.
Did Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara date?
While O’Hara spent nearly four decades building her personal life with Welch, there was another guy by her side professionally: Eugene Levy. The two met at Second City Theater in Toronto in the 1970s.
“I was a waitress at Second City, and Eugene was in the cast, and I auditioned for the cast,” O’Hara told BuzzFeed. At the time, O’Hara was “a little young” to be part of the cast, Levy recalled. However, she joined “less than six months later,” he added.
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During their time at Second City, they had a brief fling. “Everybody at Second City Theater tried to date everybody,” O’Hara recalled on Watch What Happens Live. “Like, ‘He makes me laugh, I should go out with him.’ So, [Eugene and I] did maybe one or two dates.”
Levy has been married to Deborah Divine since 1977, while O’Hara was committed to Welch. However, she and Levy starred in various projects together, including Schitt’s Creek.
