BROOKLINE – The parents of comedian and longtime late-night TV host Conan O’Brien have died within days of each other.
Dr. Thomas O’Brien died Monday at age 95, and his wife Ruth Reardon O’Brien died at 92 years old on Thursday, according to their obituaries. They were married for 66 years and raised six children. Both were said to have “passed away peacefully.”
Conan O’Brien’s parents lived in Brookline, Massachusetts, where he was born and raised. The 61-year-old is set to host the 2025 Academy Awards in March.
Dr. Thomas O’Brien
Dr. Thomas O’Brien was the director of the division of infectious diseases at what is now Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston. A Boston Globe obituary says he “sounded the alarm” decades ago on the dangers of drug-resistant bacteria and viruses.
“He was one of the very first people to call attention to the risks of antimicrobial resistance developing,” Dr. Daniel Kuritzkes, chief of the division of infectious diseases at Brigham and Women’s, told the newspaper.
Dr. Thomas O’Brien, who had served as the first director of the infectious diseases division at what is now Brigham and Women’s Hospital, has died. https://t.co/fvRr6ECfiQ
— The Boston Globe (@BostonGlobe) December 13, 2024
In an interview with The Globe, Conan O’Brien said his father “was interested in everything – absolutely everything.”
“But he was often the funniest guy in the room. And when he would laugh, his whole body would convulse and he would almost hug himself,” O’Brien said.
Ruth Reardon O’Brien
Ruth Reardon O’Brien, a Worcester native, was one of just four women in her Yale Law School class, her obituary stated. She clerked for a former chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, became a real estate attorney, and was the second woman to become a partner at the renowned Ropes & Gray law firm in Boston.
Last year, Conan O’Brien talked about growing up in a big, Irish Catholic family on the podcast Your Mama’s Kitchen and said he’s been trying to make his parents laugh ever since he was a toddler.
“My mom was very much a ‘straight man,’ you know, she was very much a, ‘oh don’t say that, sit up straight, now why would you say that,’” O’Brien recalled. “And what happens is that made me want to be really funny.”
Neal J. Riley is a digital producer for CBS Boston. He has been with WBZ-TV since 2014. His work has appeared in The Boston Globe and The San Francisco Chronicle. Neal is a graduate of Boston University.
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