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

Thomas died on Monday, December 9th after “his health deteriorated” The Boston Globe Reports. His wife died “peacefully” on December 12, according to an obituary from Bell-O’Dea Funeral Home in Brookline, Massachusetts.

The couple were married for 66 years and had six children together, including 61-year-old Conan, who attributed his love of stand-up comedy to his father.

However, people reached out to Conan for comment Tonight’s show The presenter spoke about his father’s death The globe.

Thomas introduced his children to comedy classics such as Jack Benny, Charlie Chaplin and the Marx Brothers. “The loudest laugh I ever heard was when he was sitting next to him in the theater watching Peter Sellers in a play Pink panther movie,” Conan remembers. “(My dad) was often the funniest guy in the room. And when he laughed, his whole body twitched and he almost hugged himself.”

Thomas was best known for his work in antimicrobial drug resistance research and served as the first director of the Division of Infectious Diseases 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 is no such thing as perpetual motion, but my father proved that wrong,” said Conan, who has children Neve, 21, and Beckett, 19, with his wife Liza. “My father was constantly on the move. And he was interested in everything – absolutely everything.”

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Conan added of his father: “(He) had an insatiable appetite for ideas and people and the crazy diversity and ironies of life. “He wanted to go everywhere, meet everyone, see everything, try everything.”

“For the rest of my time on Earth, I will hear from people who want to talk to me about my father,” Conan said. “I’ve never met anyone like him, and he happens to be my father. If I happened to meet him in a hotel lobby, I would think, “Who the hell is this guy?” “He’s the most interesting person I’ve ever met.”

Ruth, on the other hand, attended Yale Law School as one of four women in her class. She worked as a law clerk at the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and later as a real estate attorney at the Boston law firm Ropes & Gray. In 1978, she became the firm’s second-ever partner. In 2017, she was the second recipient of the iRelaunch Pioneering Relauncher Award.

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

In addition to Conan, the couple also leaves behind sons Justin, Neal and Luke, daughters Kate and Jane, and nine grandchildren.

A funeral mass for the couple will be held on Wednesday, December 18th in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts.