Conan O’Brien’s parents, who were married for 66 years, died at their Boston-area home this week within days of each other.
Dr. Thomas O’Brien, who co-founded the World Health Organization’s Collaborating Centre for Surveillance of Antimicrobial Resistance, died at the couple’s Brookline, Mass. home Monday after a period of declining health, The Boston Globe reported. He was 95.
The physician served as the first director of the infectious disease division at what’s now Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, and was a longtime faculty member at Harvard Medical School. He was 90 when he retired in 2019.
His death was followed three days later by that of his wife, 92-year-old Ruth Reardon O’Brien, to whom he’d been married since 1958. Together, the couple shared six children, including five-time Emmy winner, Conan.
Ruth, who would have celebrated her 93rd birthday on Monday, was exceptionally accomplished in her own right. She attended Yale Law School as one of just four women in her class, and went on to become the second-ever female partner at law firm Ropes & Gray.
In 2017, she was honored with the Pioneering Relauncher Award, which the firm said “recognized her pioneering return to work after a career break.” After welcoming her children, Ruth returned to work full-time and retired in 1996.
Speaking to The Globe, Conan remembered his father as being “interested in everything — absolutely everything” and was “often the funniest guy in the room.”
“If I met him randomly in a hotel lobby, I’d think, ‘Who the hell is this guy? He’s the most interesting person I’ve ever met,” the former talk show host said.
In addition to Conan, the couple is survived by sons Justin, Neal, and Luke, daughters Kate and Jane, as well as nine grandchildren.
A funeral mass will be held for the couple on Wednesday at St. Lawrence Church in Chestnut Hill.
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