In spring 2019, New York Magazine writer E. Alex Jung had the chance to sit down with Catherine O’Hara for an in-depth interview for Vulture. As they discussed his decades-spanning career, O’Hara shared a fascinating revelation about his “character type,” so to speak. “I think there’s a little bit of sameness in a lot of the characters that I play. I think there’s a lot of…wackiness and insecurity,” she shared. “And I say this a lot, but I like playing people who have no real idea of the impression they make on other people.”
O’Hara significantly undersold herself here, and that fact is made even clearer in the wake of the news that the Canadian actress died on January 30, 2026. Between “Beetlejuice,” “Home Alone,” “Schitt’s Creek” and “The Studio,” O’Hara was a rare talent whose career spanned generations… but younger people who may only know her from those last two projects have to wait in line. “Best in Show”, a popular mockumentary which features O’Hara’s best performance of all time.
To be honest, it was difficult to rate O’Hara’s performance as Cookie Fleck. in this mockumentary about a dog show its “best”, because all of his turns in Christopher Guest’s largely improvised films are incredible. Her role as travel agent and amateur actress Sheila Albertson in “Waiting for Guffman” is extraordinarily funny, especially when she plays drunk. Like Marilyn Hack in “For Your Consideration”, a woman who is absolutely desperate for an Oscar, O’Hara delivers a performance that is as heartbreaking as it is hilarious. But that’s not what I’m here to talk about. I’m here to talk about O’Hara’s character on “Best in Show,” who you may know as… Cookie? Cookie Guggleman?!
Cookie Fleck, Catherine O’Hara’s Best in Show Character, Has One of the Funniest Gags in Cinema History
“Best in Show,” like many of Christopher Guest’s films, operates from a loose script and lets the actors play in the writer-director’s sandbox. It works perfectly for Catherine O’Hara and Eugene Levy as married couple Cookie and Gerry Fleck, who travel from Florida to Philadelphia and end up in a storage closet at the fictional Taft Hotel because they have run out of money. Gerry, a man who literally has two left feet, often looks at Cookie as if he can’t believe such a beautiful woman could talk to him, let alone marry him. O’Hara plays with this dynamic perfectly, and the fact that O’Hara and Levy have worked together since their days on “SCTV” only strengthens their fictional on-screen bond.
THE the funniest Part of it all, though, is that Cookie, on an almost constant basiskeeps coming across former lovers who just want to remember all the crazy intimate encounters they experienced. (One guy tells Cookie he’s never “done it” on a roller coaster before.) As they all approach the gregarious, outgoing Cookie, they ask the same thing and use her maiden name: “Cookie? Cookie Guggleman?!” Seeing Levy’s Gerry become more and more exasperated by this situation is wonderful, but without a doubt, the even funnier part of all of this is how Cookie absolutely welcomes these interactions and encourages the men while Gerry loses his mind not so slowly.
In the hands of a lesser performer, this role might have been forgotten; Cookie mostly reacts to other people rather than directing the action. But there is one aspect where O’Hara takes center stage. I’ll just call it “the walk.”
Throughout Best in Show, Catherine O’Hara shows off her talent for physical comedy
In 2020, Catherine O’Hara and Eugene Levy both spoke with Vulture about “Best in Show” and what their long partnership with Christopher Guest was like…and in doing so, O’Hara revealed that one of the funniest gags in the film was his invention and part of his family history. Specifically, near the end of “Best in Show”, O’Hara, as Cookie, takes the world’s stupidest fall and then start walking…in a way no one has ever walked before. Here’s O’Hara’s full story about this legendary walk, because it needs to be explained in his own words:
“It was my dad’s thing. He would walk in front of us and do this walk, and we would all laugh. I have six brothers and sisters, and we all learned how to do it. But I had to do it in a movie. But yeah, I had to be off the show, somehow, so Gerry could show the dog. And the night before we were at the arena, we had filmed that day, and we had a little reunion, Eugene, Chris and I. They were talking about hurting me or falling, and I said, ‘Okay, what if I do this?’ And I walked away from them.'”
The rest, as they say, is history. The woman invented a silly walk. If that were his only legacy, it would be enough. Cookie Fleck, née Guggleman, is one of the most charming characters in cinema history thanks to O’Hara, and this is her best film role. You can watch it for yourself on HBO Max to honor his memory.
