Comedian Conan O’Brien has paid a touching tribute to his parents, who died within days of each other earlier this month.
The 61-year-old TV star lost his father, Dr Thomas O’Brien, on December 9 aged 95.
His mother, Ruth O’Brien, died three days later at 92.
“What my mother and father saw in each other was that they were kindred spirits. They were incredibly hard-working and disciplined,” O’Brien told Boston Globe newspaper on Wednesday (US time).
The couple were married for 66 years and O’Brien was one of their six children.
His father, a physician, epidemiologist and Harvard professor, travelled internationally to train and consult with medical peers. Despite that, O’Brien noted his father “was the dreamer” in their family.
“My dad was the one who was saying, ‘I’m off to Peru with a change of clothes in my briefcase to try to launch this website for a hospital there high in the mountains’,” the talkshow host said.
On the other hand, Conan observed that his mother – who was a lawyer and a former clerk for Boston’s Supreme Court – was more of a “realist”.
“My mom was the one who really saw to it when we were little kids that we were fed and our clothes were laid out, and that we got to our dental appointments and medical appointments,” he said.
“She’s doing all this mom stuff, and when that was done, rushing into a phone booth and becoming Ruth O’Brien, second woman partner at Ropes and Gray.”
Conan recalled that his mother always wanted to “fix” other people’s problems.
“If anyone was unhappy around my mom in a 50-mile radius, she thought it was incumbent on her to fix the problem,” he said.
“It did not make her life easy, but it was very much a part of her Catholic drive – that ‘I have to be of service to people’. And good God, she was.”
Conan O’Brien’s mother and father have passed away within days of each other.
The comedian’s mother died on December 12, just three days after his father passed away on December 9.
According to an obituary shared by a funeral home in Brookline, Massachusetts, O’Brien’s mother, Ruth Reardon O’Brien, passed away “peacefully”.
The television host’s father, Thomas Francis O’Brien, died after “his health had been failing”.
Article continues below advertisement
The couple was married for 66 years, shared six children, and were grandparents to nine grandchildren.
In addition, they have many nieces and nephews.
Article continues below advertisement
After his father’s death, O’Brien spoke to The Globe and gushed over his late dad’s love of stand-up comedy.
The television host said: “The loudest I’ve ever heard anybody laugh was sitting next to him in a theater watching Peter Sellers in a Pink Panther movie. [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.”
Article continues below advertisement
According to the obituary, Ruth was a law clerk to The Honorable Raymond Wilkins, Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, and a real estate attorney at a law firm.
She was the second woman to be a partner at the law firm.
Article continues below advertisement
The comedian is set to host the 97th Academy Awards on March 2, 2025.
Thomas had a very successful career as an associate professor at Brigham and Women’s and Harvard Medical School.
He retired back in 2019 at 90 years old.
Conan said of his father: “Science has said there’s no such thing as perpetual motion, but my father was proof that that was wrong. My father was in constant motion. And he was interested in everything — absolutely everything.”
The host continued: “[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. 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.’ ”
