(NEXSTAR) – Dr. Thomas O’Brien and Ruth R. O’Brien, the parents of late-night legend Conan O’Brien, both passed away within days of each other at their home in Brookline, Massachusetts.
Dr. O’Brien’s death, on Dec. 9, was earlier reported in an article published in The Boston Globe, which celebrated his research on antimicrobial resistance. Dr. O’Brien was the first director of infectious diseases at what is now the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, and he was the cofounder of the Collaborating Centre for Surveillance of Antimicrobial Resistance for the World Health Organization, the Globe reported.
Conan O’Brien, speaking with the outlet, also remembered his father as “the funniest guy” in any room.
“And when he would laugh, his whole body would convulse and he would almost hug himself,” he said.
On Dec. 12, just days after Dr. O’Brien’s passing at the age of 95, Ruth O’Brien, his wife of over 60 years, passed away in their Brookline home at the age of 92.
Ruth O’Brien was an accomplished lawyer, according to an obituary posted by the Bell O’Dea Funeral Home in Brookline. A graduate of Yale Law School, Ruth O’Brien worked to become the second-ever female partner at Ropes & Gray, an international law firm based in Boston.
Conan O’Brien, on his current podcast and previous interviews, has often talked about his parents and the loving yet somewhat hectic household he and his large family grew up in.
“There were six kids, two dogs, a cat, my grandmother, a parakeet — I’m not kidding,” O’Brien once said in a 2017 video celebrating an award his mother had received. “That house was kind of madness sometimes. Lovely madness, but madness still the same.”
“I don’t know how [my parents] worked it out, but they worked it out pretty well,” he added.
Dr. Thomas O’Brien and Ruth O’Brien were parents to Neal, Luke, Conan, Kate, Jane and Justin O’Brien, according to the online obituary. They also had nine grandchildren.
