Phil Donahue Dies at Age 88

Longtime TV speak present host Phil Donahue died on Sunday night time following a protracted sickness, his household mentioned. He was 88.

Donahue died at his dwelling surrounded by his household, together with his spouse of 44 years, actor Marlo Thomas, his sister, his kids, his grandchildren and his beloved golden retriever, Charlie, his household mentioned in an announcement to TODAY.

No additional particulars about his reason behind demise had been launched.

The third hour of TODAY’s Craig Melvin and Sheinelle Jones introduced the information of Donahue’s demise on Monday morning.

“You understand, we overuse typically the phrase trailblazer, however he actually was, certainly,” Sheinelle mentioned.

The journalist pioneered the fashionable format of issue-based daytime speak reveals that includes viewers participation. His present would turn into one of the vital influential applications of its time, with Donahue successful 9 Daytime Emmy Awards for excellent host.

Donahue was born in 1935 in Cleveland and started his journalism profession working in radio within the Nineteen Fifties.

Donahue married his first spouse, Margaret Mary Cooney, in 1958, and so they had 5 kids. The pair divorced in 1975.

He started internet hosting TV’s “The Phil Donahue Present” in 1967 in Ohio with a stay studio viewers. The present was syndicated just a few years later and would transfer to Chicago earlier than making its dwelling in New York Metropolis in 1985.

The ultimate episode of the present, which had been renamed “Donahue,” aired in 1996, after a 29-year run.

Donahue met Thomas whereas filming an episode of the present in 1977, and the pair later mentioned in interviews it was “love at first sight.” The couple married in 1980.

Along with internet hosting his eponymous present, Donahue repeatedly appeared on TODAY from 1979 to 1988. Thomas, an Emmy-winning actor and nationwide outreach director for St. Jude Kids’s Analysis Hospital, has additionally made appearances on TODAY.

In 2022, she gave an replace on her husband on the third hour of TODAY to Craig, Sheinelle, Al Roker and Dylan Dreyer.

“He loves to look at speak reveals and scream on the set: ‘That is not the query!'” Thomas mentioned, sending the hosts into laughter.

Donahue returned to TV briefly in 2002, when he started internet hosting a present referred to as “Donahue” on MSNBC, which was canceled a number of months later.

President Joe Biden awarded Donahue and 18 others the Presidential Medal of Freedom in Could. The medal is the nation’s highest civilian honor and is introduced to “people who’ve made exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or safety of the US, world peace, or different important societal, public or personal endeavors,” in keeping with the White Home.

Donahue’s household requested that donations be made to St. Jude Kids’s Analysis Hospital or the Phil Donahue/Notre Dame Scholarship Fund in lieu of flowers, in keeping with their assertion.