Catherine O'Hara recalls having a crush on her friend and costar John Candy. O'Hara told PEOPLE that the comedian’s kind and giving personality drew her in when they worked together in Toronto’s Second City comedy troupe and later on its spin-off show, SCTV, which ran from 1976 to 1984.

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Catherine O'Hara revealed she had a crush on John Candy

During an interview with PEOPLE, Catherine O'Hara recalled her friend and costar John Candy who passed away in 1994. “He was just as lovely as you want him to be,” she said. O'Hara also revealed that she had a crush on Candy and that his kind drew her in when they worked together in Toronto’s Second City comedy troupe and later on its spin-off show, SCTV, which ran from 1976 to 1984.

However, her feelings were one-sided. The Home Alone actress said that Candy was already in a relationship with his wife Rosemary, with whom he remained married until he died. “I wouldn’t claim he was interested in me that way,” she says. “But he was always really lovely to me in Second City Theater.”

O'Hara also said that Candy would always be willing to do an improv with her after the show. "You do a show and then you do improvs after the show. That's how you build the next show at Second City Theater. And he was always willing to try any idea,” she says. 

“You’d be on the street with him, in a mall, and somebody would come up and just want to do a comedy bit with him, and he would always pick up on it right away and give something back and see their eyes light up, like, ‘Oh, I’m doing a bit with John Candy,’ ” the actress recalled. “It's so nice to be able to not have to make up any bull, because people loved him."

O’Hara also starred with Candy in the 1990 Christmas classic Home Alone, which she called a perfect movie. He played Gus, the Polka King of the Midwest, who gives O'Hara's character a lift to get home to her son (Macaulay Culkin).

Catherine O'Hara reveals why she quit Saturday Night Live

In an interview with PEOPLE, Catherine O’Hara recalled how she was cast on the sixth season of Saturday Night Live in the early 1980s, but quit after a week. “There’s been BS stories about I was supposedly scared by somebody,” said O’Hara.

Prior to SNL, O'Hara had already been in the cast of the Canadian comedy sketch show SCTV, though it wasn’t consistent work. “Our producer would get a deal with a network, and we’d have a show for a season or two, and then that deal would go away. There’d be a break, then we’d do the show again,” she explained.

The 69-year-old actress said that during a break, she got asked to be on Saturday Night Live. And she said yes. However, later she got word that SCTV was picked up again, so she departed SNL without ever filming an episode. “Basically I said, ‘Oh, sorry, I gotta go be with my [comedy] family.’” In the end, O’Hara’s best friend from high school, Robin Duke, took her SNL slot. “It all worked out the way it was supposed to,” said O’Hara.

SCTV ran from 1976 to 1984 and was an offshoot of Toronto’s famed Second City comedy troupe, where the late comedian Gilda Radner got her start. O’Hara’s costars on SCTV included John Candy, Martin Short, Rick Moranis, Joe Flaherty, Andrea Martin, and Eugene Levy. She and Levy would go on to collaborate several more times in Christopher Guest’s movies including Best in Show.

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