Catherine O’Hara Portrayed the Vain and Delusional With a Radical Lack of Vanity

A pretentious artiste with a ghost infestation and a goth stepdaughter who hates her. A harried matriarch who discovers she’s left her youngest son home alone on Christmas. A veteran character actress who fails to conceal her thirst for an Oscar. Moira Goddamn Rose. 

These are just a few of the dozens of outsize personalities Catherine O’Hara, the comedy icon who died on Friday at 71, inhabited over the course of a career that spanned more than half a century. Her performances could be massive...