Billie Lourd is staying strong in the wake of the deaths of her mother and grandmother

Todd said: "Billie is 24-years-old. She's dealing with two gigantic losses. These two girls - my girls, my mother and my sister, were big, big personalities [with a] big influence on Billie, myself, many people.

"There's a vacuum in the room and she's feeling it and we're all feeling it. It's just that I'm 59 and I have no choice but to step up and put this stuff forward. I'm letting [Billie] breathe, you know? She needs to breathe. She needs to step back from all of this loss."

And the 59-year-old actor admits it was "heart-wrenching" seeing Billie have to deal with two big losses in two days.

He added: "When I was standing in the room the day after my sister died and we're in the hospital and my mother was dying, I mean, I was more heartbroken watching my niece than I was for myself. It was heart-wrenching.

"The idea that somebody would have to deal with that kind of a loss back to back, moment to moment - I mean we'd just had this horrible loss and then here you are just a handful of hours later standing in a different hospital in a different room. It was astounding."

However, Todd knows the 24-year-old actress is built of strong stuff because of the great upbringing her mother, grandmother and her father Bryan Lourd gave her.

Todd told Entertainment Tonight: "She's also genetically Carrie and Debbie. I don't want to leave Bryan Lourd out of this. He's an awesome father and if it wasn't for him right now, we would be in a much tougher position. He has supported her beautifully.

"You take those genes, and I think you've created a pretty powerful gal ... and she is a lot more like my mother even than Carrie. You know, she's a little like Carrie but she's a lot like my mother, which means she's going to be another Molly Brown."