The world laughed at Tim Conway on screen, but his daughter, Kelly Conway, reveals the real magic happened at home—where the jokes never stopped and love stole the spotlight.
Kelly used to tease her dad by asking which of his six children was his favorite. “He’d go, ‘I can’t say that. I have six of you,’” she recalls. “He did divide his time evenly, but dads and daughters have a special bond. We hung out a lot.”
Despite her father’s fame—with over 100 TV shows and films, including his iconic role as Dorf and his legendary years on The Carol Burnett Show—Kelly’s childhood in the San Fernando Valley was anything but Hollywood. “My dad was so low-key that I don’t think we realized he was famous until we got older,” she says. Her parents, both from Midwestern roots, raised their kids with simple, down-to-earth values. “Nobody ever got a car on their 16th birthday,” Kelly jokes.
Yet, there were perks. Thursdays meant dress rehearsals at CBS, where Kelly and the children of Carol Burnett and Harvey Korman would roam the sets of The Sonny & Cher Show and Three’s Company. “I had the luckiest, best childhood,” she says. At the end of each season, the Carol Burnett Show cast and their families would take a group trip to Hawaii, where Tim seemed most at ease at the Kahala Hotel.
At home, Tim was always creating. Whether at his typewriter dreaming up sketches or in his workshop crafting props and costumes, his mind was constantly at work. “He had a brilliant, brilliant mind,” Kelly says. A skilled carpenter and tailor, he taught his kids how to build things and even sneaked them out of school for opening day at Santa Anita Park—without their mother knowing.
Tim’s approachable nature made him beloved by fans, who often remarked on how well-behaved his children were. His response? “Them? They’re not! They’re wild!”
Kelly’s new memoir, My Dad’s Funnier Than Your Dad: Growing Up With Tim Conway in the Funniest House in America, captures the warmth, humor, and love that defined her father’s legacy—both on and off the screen.
