Phil Donahue, talk show host pioneer and husband of Marlo Thomas, dies at 88

Phil Donahue, an progressive TV host who rose to fame within the late Nineteen Sixties after being the primary individual to work together with a studio viewers and produce new concepts into American dwelling rooms, died Sunday, his household mentioned.

He was 88.

The reason for his dying was not instantly disclosed, although his household mentioned he’d been affected by a “lengthy sickness.”

“Groundbreaking TV speak present journalist Phil Donahue died Sunday night time at residence surrounded by his spouse of 44 years Marlo Thomas, his sister, his kids, grandchildren and his beloved golden retriever Charlie,” mentioned an announcement from his household.

“Donahue was 88 years outdated and handed away peacefully following a protracted sickness.”

At his peak, his nationally syndicated “The Phil Donahue Present” — later renamed “Donahue” — was a scores hit and precursor to comparable exhibits by hosts Montel Williams and Jerry Springer.

Oprah Winfrey described Donahue as a trailblazer who invented good speak within the afternoon and introduced startling new concepts into the dwelling rooms and laundry rooms of American ladies.

“His present debuted nationally, and the entire nation got here to know his private model of issue-driven straight speak,” Winfrey mentioned in 2002.

“If there had been no Phil Donahue present, there can be no ‘Oprah Winfrey’ present. He was the primary to acknowledge that girls are concerned about greater than mascara ideas and cake recipes — that we’re clever, we’re involved concerning the world round us, and we wish the absolute best lives for ourselves.”

However Donahue ushering in a brand new wave of tv occurred by chance.

He first tried the viewers participation format whereas taping his present in Dayton, Ohio, in 1967. The viewers arrived for a spread present which, unbeknownst to them, had been canceled, in line with The New York Occasions.

Donahue instructed letting them watch his interview with Madalyn Murray O’Hair, then a celeb for being an atheist. Quickly, he allowed members of the viewers to ask questions. A long time later, his model of tv turned an trade commonplace that continues at the moment.

“Phil Donahue primarily began this firm and commenced a whole trade in daytime syndication,” Bob Turner, then president of Multimedia Leisure, mentioned in an announcement to the Occasions in 1996 when Donahue introduced his retirement.

Donahue was a contributor to NBC’s “TODAY” present from 1979 till 1988. He returned to tv in 2002 as a prime-time host on MSNBC however his present was canceled after lower than a 12 months. (MSNBC and NBC Information share the identical father or mother firm, NBCUniversal.)

Away from interviewing entertainers and concerning polarizing matters akin to struggle and abortion, Donahue was a self-described feminist.

He turned an advocate for girls’s rights after noticing how ladies many years in the past had been handled within the office.

“I used to be at all times pleased with that,” Donahue mentioned, throughout a taping of NBC’s “Megyn Kelly At the moment” in 2017.

Within the Nineteen Sixties, “a boss might inform his secretary to stroll across the room so he might have a look at her; poke her within the chest and get away with it. There was nothing she might do about it,” Donahue mentioned throughout the episode.

He additionally famous what number of ladies on the time didn’t host daytime speak exhibits not like now.

“It jogs my memory of how far we’ve come, how far ladies have come,” he mentioned.

Donahue was inducted into the Tv Academy Corridor of Fame in 1993.

Throughout that ceremony, Thomas recalled how her husband put the hardest points confronted by Individuals in stark and comprehensible language.

“He pressured us to take a tough have a look at the true and imagined targets of the Persian Gulf Conflict, the professionals and cons of condom distribution in colleges and legalized drug abuse,” she mentioned.

“He laid out the financial savings and mortgage disaster in phrases so plain that anyone who had ever taken freshman math might get a grip on the ripoff.”

He gained 9 Daytime Emmy Awards, dominating the excellent syndicated speak present host class from the mid-Nineteen Seventies to mid-80s.

Earlier this 12 months, President Joe Biden honored him with a Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.

The White Home referred to as him a “tv pioneer,” whose daytime chat present turned “one of the vital influential” packages of its time.

In lieu of flowers, family members requested for donations to be made to the St. Jude Kids’s Analysis Hospital or the Phil Donahue/Notre Dame Scholarship Fund.

Donahue’s spouse and father-in-law, Danny Thomas, have lengthy been related to the St. Jude Kids’s Analysis Hospital.

Donahue married Thomas in 1980, making them one of the vital enduring {couples} in present enterprise.

She’s finest identified for her work on the groundbreaking sitcom “That Woman” which ran for 5 seasons on ABC between 1966 and 1971.

It was one of many first community exhibits to give attention to a single girl looking for a profession. Extra exhibits with that nature would observe within the Nineteen Seventies and 80s, akin to “The Mary Tyler Moore Present” and “Kate and Allie.”