The Emmy-winning ‘Donahue’ talk show presenter and media figure has away after an extended health crisis, his family announced. Phil Donahue, the renowned “King of Daytime Talk” who established and hosted The Phil Donahue Show, died on Sunday, August 18 at the age of 88, according to PEOPLE.
In a statement first reported by the Today Show on Monday, August 19, Donahue’s family said the groundbreaking TV talk show journalist died at home surrounded by his family, including his wife of 44 years, actress Marlo Thomas, as well as “his sister, his children, grandchildren, and his beloved golden retriever, Charlie.”
The statement stated that he “passed away peacefully following a long illness.”
Donahue’s family asked that instead of flowers, donations be donated to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital or the Phil Donahue/Notre Dame Scholarship Fund.
Donahue, born on December 21, 1935, grew up in Cleveland and started his media career in talk radio and television in the late 1950s. In 1967, he launched his talk program in Dayton, Ohio. The show garnered reputation and attention in 1971 for exploring contentious themes and putting viewers behind bars for a weeklong series at the Ohio State Penitentiary.
The Phil Donahue Show focused its hour-long program on specific themes such as child abuse in the Catholic Church, feminism, and race relations, and it was the first to allow audience members to ask guests questions. When the show was transferred to Chicago and renamed Donahue in 1974, the host found his place while reinventing the daytime format.
“When Phil came to Chicago, he found his most important element — the Chicago studio audience,” Ron Weiner, Donahue’s longtime director, said to WGN-TV in 2023. “From that point, the program took off.”
Donahue said: “One day, I just went out in the audience, and it’s clear there would be no Donahue show if I hadn’t somehow accidentally brought in the audience.”
The show relocated to New York City in January 1985. While airing live from 30 Rockefeller Plaza, Donahue continued to pioneer new ground in daytime television by interviewing politicians, activists, musicians, athletes, and actresses.
He was the first host to tape five episodes in the Soviet Union in January 1987, according to the Tampa Bay Times. In March 1990, Donahue interviewed Nelson Mandela by satellite from Lusaka, Zambia, on his debut talk show appearance. In April 1992, the show featured the leading televised debate between Democratic presidential candidates Bill Clinton and Jerry Brown Jr., with no crowd, moderator, or commercial break.
Other popular celebrity guests during the years have included Sammy Davis Jr., Ralph Nader, Elton John, Gloria Steinem, Gregory Peck, Billy Crystal, Whoopi Goldberg, Robin Williams, Dolly Parton, Muhammad Ali, Michael J. Fox, Roseanne Barr, Steve Martin, Richard Pryor, and others.
Donahue went on to win 20 Emmy Awards (10 for Outstanding Host and ten for the talk show itself), paving the way for other daytime hosts including Geraldo Rivera, Sally Jessy Raphael, Ricki Lake, Montel Williams, and Oprah Winfrey, whose show, like Donahue’s, originated in Chicago.
“If there hadn’t been a Phil Donahue show, there would have been no Oprah Winfrey Show,” Winfrey wrote in the September 2002 issue of O, the Oprah magazine. “He was the first to acknowledge that women are interested in more than mascara tips and cake recipes — that we’re intelligent, we’re concerned about the world around us and we want the best possible lives for ourselves.”
The talk show’s home base remained in New York City until its final taping in September 1996, 29 years after its debut. After a six-year break, its namesake returned to primetime television in 2002 to present Donahue, an interview-based show. However, MSNBC cancelled the self-titled show in February 2003 due to insufficient ratings, according to The New York Times. Following the show’s interruption,
Donahue married his second wife, Thomas, in 1980, after they met in 1977 as guests on his talk show. In a painful post on Facebook, Thomas stated that “it was instant chemistry.” The couple eventually co-authored the book “What Makes a Marriage Last: 40 Celebrated Couples.” Please share with us the secrets to a happy life in 2020.
In May 2023, Thomas told PEOPLE that “love, listening, and lust” were the secrets to her good marriage with Donahue. She responded, “You have to listen to understand what the other person is thinking and going through. You need to love each other. And without lust, you have nothing,” before adding, “He’s the best. I’m quite lucky.”
President Joe Biden awarded Donahue the Presidential Medal of Freedom in May 2024, along with Olympic swimmer Katie Ledecky and Oscar-winning actress Michelle Yeoh.
