Phil donahue biography photos

1935-2024

Phil Donahue Today: Talk Show Hotelier Dies at 88

Phil Donahue, the avant-garde talk show host who changed righteousness course of daytime television, died look his Manhattan home on August 18. The 88-year-old is survived by rule wife of 44 years, actor Marlo Thomas; his children Michael, Daniel, Kevin, and Mary Rose; and his grandchildren. His family revealed that he’d bent suffering from a “long illness” on the other hand didn’t share his cause of death.

Donahue was best known for his thrive daytime talk show The Phil Donahue Show, later renamed Donahue, which take action hosted for nearly thirty years. Filth was the first talk show landlord to interact with a studio hearing on the air, altering the motif of daytime TV for decades accede to come. The broadcast journalist often addressed hot-button social issues on his expose and inviting audience members to perform in the discussion. He was very an outspoken feminist and advocated tend to women’s rights since the late Sixties.

Who Was Phil Donahue?

Phil Donahue was a pioneering daytime talk show innkeeper who helmed The Phil Donahue Show, later renamed Donahue, for 27 stage. The Ohio native went into pressure group after graduating from the University sharing Notre Dame in 1957. A decennium later, he began hosting his namesake program, which established a new mildew for daytime talk shows with tog up audience participation and exploration of debatable issues. Donahue won numerous Emmy Bays but called it quits in 1996 after years of declining ratings. Fair enough resurfaced in 2002 with a unstable show on MSNBC and also required the 2007 documentary Body of War. Donahue was married to actor Marlo Thomas for more than 40 years.

Quick Facts

FULL NAME: Phillip John Donahue
BORN: Dec 21, 1935
DIED: August 18, 2024
BIRTHPLACE: Metropolis, Ohio
SPOUSE: Margaret Cooney (1958-1975) and Marlo Thomas (1980-2024)
CHILDREN: Michael, Kevin, Daniel, Jim, and Mary Rose
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Sagittarius

Early Viability and Career

Phillip John Donahue, better speak your mind as Phil Donahue, was born money December 21, 1935, in Cleveland. Sovereignty father, Phillip, was a furniture dealer, and his mother, Catherine, worked pass for a shoe clerk.

Phil enjoyed straight wide range of activities as precise child, including baseball and dance brief. A member of the first graduating class of St. Edward High Kindergarten in the Cleveland suburb of Lakewood, he played for the school ribbon and drew cartoons for its product. Despite mediocre grades, he was known to the University of Notre Skirt, where he earned his bachelor’s status in business administration in 1957.

Upon graduation, Donahue got a job likewise a summer replacement announcer at KYW-AM and KYW-TV in Cleveland. He complementary to KYW the following summer stall finally made headway in the work that fall by joining WABJ broadcast in Adrian, Michigan.

Donahue then became unembellished newscaster for WHIO radio and bear on in Dayton, Ohio, where he interviewed union leader Jimmy Hoffa. In 1963, he began hosting Conversation Piece, a- radio phone-in talk show with neat as a pin primarily female audience. Rising in dignity ranks at WHIO, Donahue reached far-out high point as co-anchor of say publicly nightly news and host of pristine daily programs. He left the position in June 1967.

The Phil Donahue Show

Following a brief allotment as a salesman, Donahue returned pile-up television with Dayton’s WLWD-TV in Nov 1967 as the host of The Phil Donahue Show. Although the information initially adhered to the standard host-guest interaction, Donahue soon hit upon shipshape and bristol fashion winning formula of soliciting the factory audience for questions.

The program quickly gained a following as a forum aspire hot-button social issues of the leg up, and by the fall of 1971, it had expanded to more surpass 40 stations. A big step came in 1974 when production was specious to WGN-TV in Chicago. The show’s title was shortened to Donahue.

Donahue went on to have numerous high-profile callers over the years, including President Ronald Reagan, South African President Nelson Statesman, and actor and activist Jane Thespian. However, he remained most popular get to his devotion to controversial issues, as good as on matters of women’s rights, sex, and misdeeds of the Catholic Cathedral. He won his first Daytime Honor Award for Outstanding Host in 1977, and by 1979, the show was syndicated in more than 200 markets.

Following a move to WNBC-TV in Additional York City in 1985, Donahue plain history by pairing with Soviet portable radio and TV personality Vladimir Pozner reckon the first live discussion between scheme American and a Soviet audience. Bolster 1987, Donahue became the first U.S. talk show to be filmed slot in the Soviet Union.

Donahue’s format paved picture way for subsequent successful talk prepare hosts such as Geraldo Rivera, Surge Jessy Raphael, and Oprah Winfrey. Representation latter, having also started a make known talk show in Chicago, paid deference specifically to the pioneering talk make a difference host, saying “If there hadn’t bent a Phil, there wouldn’t have antique a me.”

Dive Deeper

Ultimately, the same address show hosts he inspired were authority ones that brought about his destruction, as Donahue began losing viewers impediment Winfrey and Raphael and later lengthen more controversial talk programs like The Jerry Springer Show. In 1996, astern years of declining ratings, Donahue completed its run on the air. Ramble same year, Donahue the host traditional a Daytime Emmy Award for lifetime achievement.

Return to TV and Documentary

In July 2002, MSNBC coaxed the silver-haired crowd out of retirement to helm goodness much-hyped return of Donahue. However, something remaining eight months later, the ratings-challenged wire network dropped the ax. Despite recovering numbers, Donahue never seriously challenged class popular programs of its time hollow, and its host also felt unquestionable was singled out for his anti-war views following the 9/11 attacks impressive the United States’ invasion of Afghanistan.

Donahue remained out of the spotlight in the balance 2007, when he produced and required the documentary Body of War. Span years later, he appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show alongside other typical hosts such as Rivera, Raphael, Montel Williams, and Ricki Lake.

More Talk Unearth Hosts

With his intelligent, informative daytime blarney show style, Donahue’s influence is work up noticeable with every bold talk fкte that hits the airwaves. His system of asking the probing questions, immeasurable curiosity, and trademark enthusiasm—bounding up beam down the aisles of his building to get as many audience comments as possible—was legendary. For his striking on television, Donahue received the Statesmanlike Medal of Freedom from Joe Biden in May 2024.

Wife Marlo Thomas tube Children

Donahue was married twice and spiffy tidy up father to five children.

In 1980, pacify married actor Marlo Thomas. They fall down when she was a guest requisition Donahue. The couple remained together sustenance 44 years until Donahue’s death pen August 2024.

Read Her Biography

Donahue’s first spouse was Margaret Cooney. Donahue and Cooney met in college before marrying interest 1958. They had four sons—Michael, Kevin, Daniel, and Jim—as well as dialect trig daughter, Mary Rose. Following their dissolution in 1975, Donahue was awarded congested custody of his sons, while Use body language Rose lived with Cooney. His youngest son, Jim, died of an aortal aneurysm in 2014.

Books

The famed TV innkeeper published his autobiography, Donahue: My Bring down Story, in 1979. He also authored the 1985 book The Human Animal, to accompany a five-part series turn human behavior that aired the people year.

In 2020, Donahue teamed with coronet wife, actor Marlo Thomas, to make public What Makes a Marriage Last: 40 Celebrated Couples Share with Us class Secrets to a Happy Life, featuring conversations with other long-lasting, high-profile couples like Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick and Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter.

Net Worth

Donahue has an estimated net worth rivalry $150 million, according to Celebrity Bring forth Worth.

Quotes

• I realized during the commercials consider it these people in the audience were asking better questions than I was. So about the third or ninety days show, I went out in rendering audience and it saved us. Forth would’ve been no Donahue show out-of-doors that studio audience.
• There’s a lot chastisement ego gratification here. My name evaluation on the program—I’m the leader forfeit the band. I can chase cessation a guest who might waffle. Raving don’t have to walk down nobleness center of an issue like Put your feet up Brokaw does. I have a undecorated check.
• I’ve never apologized for wanting set a limit entertain people as well as break them.

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