BROOKLINE – The parents of comedian and longtime 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 Thursday at age 92, according to their obituaries. They were married for 66 years and had six children. Both are said to have ‘died peacefully’.
Conan O’Brien’s parents lived in Brookline, Massachusetts, where he was born and raised. The 61-year-old will host in 2025 Academy Awards in March.
Dr. Thomas O’Brien
Dr. Thomas O’Brien was director of the division of infectious diseases at what is now Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston. A Boston Globe obituary notes that decades ago he “sounded the alarm” about the dangers of resistant to drugs bacteria and viruses.
“He was one of the very first people to draw attention to the risks of developing antimicrobial resistance,” said Dr. Daniel Kuritzkes, chief of infectious diseases at Brigham and Women’s, told the newspaper.
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 laughed, his whole body would shake and he would almost hug himself,” O’Brien said.
Ruth Reardon O’Brien
Ruth Reardon O’Brien, a native of Worcester, was one of only four women in her class at Yale Law School, according to her obituary. She clerked for a former chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court, became a real estate attorney and was the second woman to become a partner at the renowned Boston law firm of Ropes & Gray.
Last year, Conan O’Brien talked about growing up in a large Irish Catholic family on the podcast Your Mama’s Kitchen and said he’s been trying to make his parents laugh since he was a toddler.
“My mother was very much a ‘straight man’, you know, she was very much a ‘oh don’t say that, sit up straight, why would you say that?’” O’Brien recalled. “And what happens is I wanted to be really funny.”
