Michael Keaton shares memories of ‘goddess’ Catherine O’Hara 1 week after her death
Michael Keaton reflected on his decades-long friendship with his “Beetlejuice” co-star Catherine O’Hara one week after her tragic death.
The “Batman” star tried to remember his first meeting with the “goddess” when he was honored as the 2026 Man of the Year by Harvard University’s Hasty Pudding Theatricals in Cambridge, Mass., on Friday, by People.
Keaton explained that he met the actor shortly before they worked together on the Tim Burton-directed film in 1988, saying he was a big fan of his early 1980s comedy show “SCTV.”
“I was a big fan of ‘SCTV’,” said the actor, 74. “I’m a big fan of ‘SCTV’.”
Keaton struggled to pinpoint his first meeting with O’Hara, adding, “I remember we must have met or known each other a little bit, because, like me, you have a big family. You’re one of seven, and I’m one of seven. So somehow we’re supposed to be friends.”
“I think I was filming in Toronto,” he continued. “I remember the night I was in Toronto where he had summer [with her] brothers and sisters, and we were all shooting in a bar somewhere.”
“But I think I knew him before, I find it hard to remember,” said Keaton.
He boasted of being a “huge fan, like everybody else,” saying he knew O’Hara as “kind of a goddess” in the comedy industry.
The “Spotlight” star explained that others “knew how smart he was and how great he was,” and his rise to fame was no surprise.
Keaton also shared how he talked O’Hara into portraying his ex-wife in the 2005 Michael Hoffman-directed film “Game 6.”
“I think that was after the first ‘Beetlejuice,'” he said. “But I knew him before that … I don’t remember what it was like when I met him, but we got to be friends more than just working together.”
Additionally, the “Home Alone” star and Keaton starred together in the 1994 film “The Paper,” and reunited for the 2024 sequel to Beetlejuice.
Keaton wrote an emotional tribute to O’Hara shortly after she died “after a short illness” at age 71 on Jan. 30.
“Going way back before the first ‘Beetlejuice’,” she wrote on Instagram, alongside a photo of herself and the “Schitt’s Creek” alum.
“He was my pretend wife, my enemies and my real life, this is a true friend, it hurts, man I will miss him. [Bo] so,” added Keaton, referring to O’Hara’s husband of 33 years, Bo Welch.
O’Hara, meanwhile, was rushed to a Los Angeles-based hospital in “critical condition” around 5 a.m. the day she died.
The “A Mighty Wind” star was having “difficulty breathing,” a call to 911 dispatch obtained by Page Six revealed.
The cause of his death has not been disclosed.
