Legendary Media Personality Phil Donahue Dies At 88

After battling a long illness, Donahue died on Sunday at age 88, surrounded by his family members, including his 44-year-old wife, actress Marlo Thomas, his sister, children, and grandchildren.

On Monday, Marlo Thomas announced on Instagram that she would be taking a break from social media “to take care of myself and the many people who took care of Phil and held him close to their hearts.”

Oprah Winfrey shared her condolences for the demise of the star host of talk shows on her social media. According to her, without Phil Donahue, who was the first to demonstrate that women’s viewing and daytime talk shows could be treated seriously, there would not have been an Oprah show.

He had done 7,000 episodes for 29 years and had received 20 Emmy Awards.

Donahue, born on December 21, 1935, was raised in Cleveland and began his media career in the late 1950s with talk radio and television. In 1967, he began hosting his own talk program in Dayton, Ohio. The show acquired reputation and praise for addressing contentious themes and putting viewers behind bars for a weeklong series at the Ohio State Penitentiary in 1971.

His 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.

In New York City, he brought brand new changes to his TV show by interviewing politicians like Nelson Mandela in March 1990 and the debate between Democratic presidential candidates Bill Clinton and Jerry Brown Jr. in April 1992, as well as activists, musicians, athletes, and actors.

He opens the door for other daytime hosts such as Geraldo Rivera, Sally Jessy Raphael, Ricki Lake, Montel Williams, and Oprah Winfrey, who is based in Chicago like Donahue, debuted in 1985 and gradually surpassed him in the ratings beginning with the 1986-87 season, though Donahue frequently pointed out that she “raised all boats,” raising his numbers even as she passed him.

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, for namesake, he returned to primetime television in 2002 to present Donahue, an interview-based show. However, MSNBC canceled the self-titled program in February 2003 due to insufficient ratings. He co-wrote, filmed, and produced the 2007 documentary Body of War.

He married Margaret Cooney in 1958 and had five children before divorcing her in 1975. He met actor Marlo Thomas, the 1960s “That Girl” star who was a national name at the time, and when she appeared on his show in 1977, both fell in love at first sight, and they married in 1980. The couple later co-authored the book What Makes a Marriage Last.

POTUS Joe Biden awarded Phil Donahue the Presidential Medal of Freedom in May 2024.