Celebrity
Comedy icon Tim Conway died in 2019 and his daughter reveals the difficulties she experienced with his second wife in an upcoming memoir.
Published on December 7, 2021
3 min readComedy icon Tim Conway earned four Emmy awards during his seasons on The Carol Burnett Show. After being a frequent guest on the sketch show, Conway joined the cast as a regular in 1975 and continued his role as second banana to Carol Burnett until the series ended in 1978. Conway died in May 2019 and his daughter revealed that she had major issues with her dad’s second wife.
Tim Conway’s daughter called him her ‘best pal’
According to Fox News, Conway and Mary Anne Dalton were married from 1961 until 1978. The couple had six children together, including daughter Kelly, who has a memoir entitled “My Dad’s Funnier than Your Dad: Growing Up with Tim Conway in the Funniest House of America,” set to hit shelves later this month. In her book, she recalled their close bond and the pain of her parents’ divorce when she was 17.
“It was very hard,” she admitted. “You don’t think of your parents as human beings. They’re superheroes who are there to take care of you and are supposed to always be around no matter what. So when my dad moved out, I was devastated. … He remained close. He ended up buying a house only a mile from the house we grew up in.”
Kelly was the only daughter or her five siblings but relished her role as daddy’s little girl.
“I had such a special relationship with my dad,” she shared. “He was my best pal in the world. We spoke all the time and he always wanted to check in on me. He was very sweet to me. If I ever had a problem, say at school or something, he always found a way to make me feel better… I miss that so much.”
‘Carol Burnett Show’ star’s 2nd wife kept Kelly from seeing her father
Conway remarried in 1984 to Charlene Fusco and the two remained together until his death in 2019. The Carol Burnett Show star was rumored to have dementia in 2018, but Kelly explained he had “normal pressure hydrocephalus. It’s a brain disorder in which excess fluid accumulates in the brain’s ventricles.” While her father was ill, Charlene blocked Kelly from seeing Conway which prompted her to take legal action.
“[Charlene] didn’t want me to see my dad and I still don’t know why,” Kelly said. “I had to sue her for conservatorship. We won the first part, which was a restraining order to keep my dad in one place because he was moved around quite a bit. I didn’t think it was healthy for him. But because she was his power of attorney, she was his guardian of course, which she should be because she’s his wife.”
Kelly went on to reveal that her top priority was protecting her father and ensuring the best medical care and comfort for him.
“Some bad decisions were being made for him,” she told Fox News. “I just wanted him to be at home where he was comfortable and happy in a familiar environment. I wanted him to suffer less. That’s all I wanted. … I never wanted any kind of controversy in public because my dad was so private. … then I had to take legal action because I wanted to see him and I was being kept out of places. She instructed doctors or nurses and caregivers not to speak to me. It was a mess.”
Tim Conway and Carol Burnett were ‘best buddies’
Kelly raved of her dad’s bond with Burnett and praised the famous redhead for giving Conway comedic freedom on her show.
“They were best buddies in and out of work,” Kelly remarked. “She was at our house a lot. … They were really close. She loved my dad and my dad loved her. Not only did they have a genuine friendship, but she let him do what he did best. He didn’t need to stick to a script. She allowed him to shine and go crazy. I think that’s why they created so much magic on set together.”
“My Dad’s Funnier than Your Dad” is scheduled for release on Dec. 30, 2021.
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