She mastered the roles of dazzling beauty, village idiot — and famously, the careless but loving mom

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My favourite of Catherine O’Hara’s characters on SCTV (1976-1984) was “Lola Heatherton,” the fading and dubiously talented ingenue who couldn’t get through five minutes of a variety special or a talk show without coming apart at the seams. I hope it’s not tasteless to observe that Joey Heatherton, one of a few ’70s starlets who inspired the character, has done the unthinkable and outlasted her cosmic sister. Lola, to me, is the perfect representation of what Catherine O’Hara brought to SCTV and to the rest of her career.

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On one level, the Lola character is just another one of SCTV’s beautifully vicious send-ups of the media of its time (to which the show provides, in retrospect, a remarkable and illuminating primer). Lola is........

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