Westminster Dog Show Honors Catherine O’Hara and Her ‘Best in Show’ Legacy: ‘A True Legend, Timeless Talent and Icon’

The Westminster Dog Show honored Catherine O’Hara, who died Jan. 30 at the age of 71, with a video tribute shown on the Madison Square Garden jumbotron on Tuesday night in New York City.

The video featured clips of O’Hara’s various roles, notably Cookie Fleck from the 2000 Christopher Guest comedy “Best in Show,” a mockumentary about five entrants competing in the fictional Mayflower Kennel Club Dog Show.

In the film, O’Hara’s Cookie and her hapless husband, Gerry (played by Eugene Levy), own a Norwich terrier named Winky who is competing for Best in Show. On Tuesday, the Westminster’s video tribute to O’Hara played before the real-life judging of the terrier group.

Text on the Madison Square Garden jumbotron read, “A true legend, timeless talent and icon,” alongside O’Hara’s name and years of birth and death.

“Best in Show” was one of many projects O’Hara collaborated on with frequent partners Levy and Guest. The trio’s other films include “Waiting for Guffman,” “A Mighty Wind” and “For Your Consideration.” Levy and O’Hara later reunited on the sitcom “Schitt’s Creek,” where they portrayed husband and wife Johnny and Moira Rose for six seasons.

“Words seem inadequate to express the loss I feel today,” Levy wrote in a tribute to O’Hara. “I had the honor of knowing and working with the great Catherine O’Hara for over fifty years. From our beginnings on the Second City stage, to SCTV, to the movies we did with Chris Guest, to our six glorious years on ‘Schitt’s Creek,’ I cherished our working relationship, but most of all our friendship. And I will miss her. My heart goes out to Bo, Matthew, Luke and the entire O’Hara family.”

Guest also paid tribute to O’Hara, saying in a statement, “I am devastated. We have lost one of the comic giants of our age. I send my love to her family.”