Conan O’Brien Parents, Who Were Married for 66 Years, Die 3 Days Apart from One Another

Dr. Thomas O’Brien and his wife Ruth Reardon O’Brien, the parents of late night comedian Conan O’Brien, have died three days apart. Thomas was 95 and Ruth was 92. 

Thomas died on Monday, Dec. 9 after “his health had been failing,” The Boston Globe reports. His wife died “peacefully” on Dec. 12, according to an obituary shared by the Bell-O’Dea Funeral Home in Brookline, Mass.

The couple were married 66 years and shared six children together, including Conan, 61, who credited his father with his love of stand-up comedy. 

PEOPLE reached out to Conan for comment, though the former Tonight Show host spoke about his father’s father’s death to The Globe.

Thomas introduced his children to comedy classics like Jack Benny, Charlie Chaplin and the Marx Brothers. “The loudest I’ve ever heard anybody laugh was sitting next to him in a theater watching Peter Sellers in a Pink Panther movie,” Conan recalled. “[My dad] was often the funniest guy in the room. And when he would laugh, his whole body would convulse and he would almost hug himself.”

Thomas was best known for his work in antimicrobial drug resistance research and served as the first director of the infectious diseases division at what is now Brigham and Women’s Hospital. His career spanned more than 60 years at Brigham and Women’s and Harvard Medical School where he was an associate professor. He retired in 2019 at the age of 90.

“Science has said there’s no such thing as perpetual motion, but my father was proof that that was wrong,” Conan, who shares kids Neve, 21, and Beckett, 19, with his wife Liza, said. “My father was in constant motion. And he was interested in everything — absolutely everything.”

Conan added of his father, “[He] had a voracious appetite for ideas and people and the crazy variety and irony of life. He wanted to go everywhere, meet everybody, see everything, taste everything.”

“For the rest of my time on earth I will be hearing from people who want to talk with me about my dad,” Conan said. “I’ve never met anyone like him, and he happens to be my father. 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.’ ”

Ruth, meanwhile, attended Yale Law School as one of four women in her class. She served as a law clerk on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and later a real estate attorney at the law firm of Ropes & Gray in Boston. In 1978 she became the second woman partner in the firm ever.

Thomas married Ruth in 1958 after meeting her through her brothers, who were his classmates.

In addition to Conan, the couple is also survived by their sons Justin, Neal, and Luke, and daughters Kate and Jane, plus, nine grandchildren.

A funeral mass will be held for the couple on Wednesday, Dec. 18 in Chestnut Hill, Mass.