Pioneering daytime TV host Phil Donahue dies at 88

Daytime talk show legend Phil Donahue, whose pioneering "The Phil Donahue Show" revolutionized TV with studio audience participation on topical social issues, has died. He was 88.

Donahue's death was confirmed Monday by a family spokesperson, Susie Arons, who said Donahue died "peacefully following a long illness," surrounded by family members and "his beloved Golden retriever, Charlie."

Donahue, who was married to actress Marlo Thomas for more than 40 years, hosted more than 6,000 episodes of his game-changing "The Phil Donahue Show" (later shortened to "Donahue") from 1967 to 1996.

At the peak of Donahue's nationally syndicated TV reign, the silver-haired host was a familiar TV presence, charging across the studio with his cordless microphone to allow audience members to weigh in on the discussions.

"Donahue" kicked open the doors for similar daytime talk shows, including "The Oprah Winfrey Show," hosted by eventual ratings rival Oprah Winfrey, as well as more tabloid-style competitors like Sally Jessy Raphael, Jerry Springer and Geraldo Rivera.

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"He may not have invented talking to people on television, he just did it better than anyone who came before him. All of us who came after Phil Donahue owe him a tremendous debt of gratitude," Winfrey has said. "Had there not been a Phil Donahue, there could not have been an Oprah."

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Born in Cleveland on Dec. 21, 1935, the Irish Catholic host blazed a new TV path when "The Phil Donahue Show" premiered on Nov. 6, 1967. The University of Notre Dame graduate and radio host had been recruited by TV station WLWD in Dayton, Ohio, to repackage his call-in program for local TV.

Without the stars common on TV talk shows in hubs like Los Angeles and New York City, Donahue leaned into hot-button issues with callers and audience members asking questions. The first-time TV host kicked off with a contentious audience discussion with atheist activist Madalyn Murray O’Hair.

“Honest to goodness, I didn’t think I was going to be able to get out of the building; people went berserk,” Donahue said in an interview with the Archive of American Television. “We knew we had to have personalities that would move you to go to that telephone. The response was so intense that we paralyzed part of the phone system in Dayton.”

Donahue's innovation of encouraging studio members to participate in the often emotional mix of news and cultural issues was a significant change from celebrity chat-show predecessors like Merv Griffin and Mike Douglas.

"A talk show is a fundamentally democratic event," Donahue said at his induction to the Television Hall of Fame in 1993. “It allows the people who really own the airwaves, the public, to stand up and actually use them. Nobody screens our audience. Nobody tells our audience what to say. This is the street corner."

The nationally syndicated show was rebranded to simply "Donahue" when the production moved to Chicago's WGN Studios in 1974. The next year, Donahue's marriage to college sweetheart Margaret Cooney ended in divorce after 17 years, making the talk show host a single dad to the couple's five children. Donahue credited raising his children with helping him relate to the at-home mothers who made up most of his TV audience.

"I certainly learned a lot about what women endure," Donahue told Megyn Kelly in 2017. "I know that Downy goes in the rinse cycle."

Every American president from Richard Nixon to Bill Clinton appeared on the show, which the writer David Halberstam described as “the most important graduate school in America.” "That Girl" actress Thomas was one of the Hollywood celebrities Donahue interviewed in 1977, and it led to immediate sparks.

Donahue told USA TODAY in 2020 that he saw Thomas as "a hangover guest," someone who "even if you’re not very sharp, and you're not quick on the trigger, will keep the conversation going and save you."

"We went out the very next night and were together from then on," Thomas told USA TODAY in 2020. "It’s so interesting. I went on a lot of talk shows in my life. I didn’t fall in love with Johnny Carson, you know?" 

The couple were married May 21, 1980, a union so successful that they co-wrote the book on it with 2020's "What Makes A Marriage Last." 

"Donahue" was almost as enduring, lasting nearly three decades before it was overtaken by competition like "Oprah," which premiered in September 1986, as well as more outrageous spawn such as "The Sally Jesse Raphael Show" (1983) and "The Jerry Springer Show" (1991).

"The street became very crowded with Donahue followers," Donahue said in an Emmy interview. "And it got racier and racier. ... The attempt to draw the crowd became so intense that the selection of material became more bizarre with each passing week."

With sagging ratings, Donahue retired from TV in February 1996, just a half-season away from his 30th year wielding the microphone. In July 2002, he returned to host the talk show "Donahue" on MSNBC, which was canceled after seven months.

Donahue received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Joe Biden in May 2024.

"He broadcast the power of personal stories in living rooms all across America. He helped change hearts and minds through honest and open dialogue," Biden said. "Over the course of a defining career in television and through thousands of daily conversations, Phil Donahue steered the nation’s discourse and spoke to our better angels."

The talk show legend expressed no regrets in an interview in 2011 with the Television Academy. "It's been a good life. I'm a happy camper," Donahue said. "What happened to me ought to happen to everybody."