Renowned “King of Daytime Talk” Phil Donahue, who created and hosted the The Phil Donahue Show, died on Sunday, Aug. 18 at the age of 88.
In a statement obtained by Today, Donahue’s family said the groundbreaking TV talk show journalist died in his 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 noted he “passed away peacefully following a long illness.”
Donahue’s family requested that in leiu of flowers, donations be made to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital or the Phil Donahue/Notre Dame Scholarship Fund.
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Born on Dec. 21, 1935, Donahue grew up in Cleveland and began his media career in the late 1950s in talk radio and television. He started his eponymous talk show in 1967 in Dayton, Ohio. The show gained credibility and acclaim for tackling controversial topics and taking viewers behind bars for a weeklong series at the Ohio state penitentiary in 1971.
The Phil Donahue Show devoted its hour-long broadcast to single issues including child abuse in the Catholic Church, feminism and race relations, and it was the first to allow audience members to ask guests questions. In 1974, once he relocated the show to Chicago and changed its name to Donahue, the host found his niche while innovating the daytime format.
“When Phil came to Chicago, he found his most important element — the Chicago studio audience,” Ron Weiner, the former director of Donahue, told WGN-TV in 2023. “From that point, the program really took off.”
Donahue added, “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.”
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The show then moved to New York City in January 1985. While broadcasting live from 30 Rockefeller Plaza, Donahue continued to break new ground in daytime TV, interviewing politicians, activists, musicians, athletes and actors.
He was the pioneering host to tape five episodes in the Soviet Union in January 1987, per the Tampa Bay Times. In March 1990, Donahue interviewed Nelson Mandela in his first appearance on a talk show via satellite from Lusaka, Zambia. The show hosted the leading televised debate between Democratic presidential contenders Bill Clinton and Jerry Brown Jr. in April 1992 — without an audience, moderator or commercial break.
Other notable celebrity guests over the years 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 many more.
Donahue went on to win 20 Emmy Awards (10 for outstanding host and 10 for the talk show itself) and pave the way for other daytime hosts such as Geraldo Rivera, Sally Jesse Raphael, Ricki Lake, Montel Williams and Oprah Winfrey — whose show, like Donahue’s, had roots in Chicago.
“If there had been no Phil Donahue show, there would be 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.”
New York City remained the talk show’s home until its final taping after 29 years on air in September 1996. Following a six-year hiatus, its namesake returned to primetime TV in 2002 to host Donahue, an interview-driven program. However, MSNBC canceled the self-titled show in February 2003 due to low viewership, per The New York Times. After the show’s cancellation, he wrote, co-directed and produced the 2007 documentary Body of War.
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Donahue married his second wife, actress Marlo Thomas, in 1980 after the two first met in 1977 when she was a guest on his talk show. In a throwback post on Facebook, Thomas shared that “it was instant chemistry.” The couple later co-authored the book What Makes a Marriage Last: 40 Celebrated Couples Share with Us the Secrets to a Happy Life in 2020.
In May 2023, Thomas revealed to PEOPLE that “love, listening and lust” were the keys to her happy marriage to Donahue.
She said, “You have to listen, and then you’ll know what the other person is really thinking and going through. You have to love each other. And without lust, you don’t have anything,” before adding, “He’s the best. I’m very lucky.”
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Donahue is survived by Thomas and four children — Michael, Kevin, Daniel and Mary Rose — from his first marriage. He is predeceased by son James “Jim” Patrick, who died in 2014 of an aortic aneurysm at the age of 51.
