Longtime television host Phil Donahue has died, according to his family.
Donahue was 88 when he passed away on Aug. 18, relatives told news outlets in a statement. He was born in 1935 in Cleveland, Ohio.
Family members said that Donahue died at home while surrounded by his wife, Marlo Thomas, his sister, his children, his grandchildren, and his dog.
Donahue “passed away peacefully following a long illness,” according to the family.
Donahue’s relatives said people can make donations in his honor to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital or the Phil Donahue/Notre Dame Scholarship Fund, which funds scholarships for the school from which he graduated.
Donahue had a lengthy career that began with minor roles at several stations before he became a news anchor at WHIO-TV, an Ohio broadcaster, and the host of a talk show on WHIO radio. His show, The Phil Donahue Show, soon went national and was produced for many years in New York City.
Donahue has been credited for pioneering the talk show format. Oprah Winfrey called him a titan and was quoted on her website as saying, “If it weren’t for Phil Donahue, there would never have been an Oprah Show.”
Donahue’s show covered a number of topics, including abortion and politics. His first interview was with an atheist who sued over prayer in public schools.
“We knew that in order to get attention, we had to be controversial,” Donahue told Winfrey.
Some stations declined to carry some of Donahue’s programs because of the subject matter.
The show finished in 1996.
“I felt that 29 years, I’m 60 years old, we aren’t doing the numbers we used to. It’s getting tougher and tougher. ... You’re being challenged on every front, in terms of the visual, the fighting, [Jerry] Springer, the guards. The audiences are being prepared on these other shows. We never told audience members what to say,” Donahue told the Television Academy Foundation. He added later, “We were very proud of the fact that we got 200 people in the audience and, what do you know, maybe somebody will say something interesting.”
Donahue came out of retirement to start a new show on MSNBC, but it lasted less than a year.
“Before social media and clickbait news, Phil Donahue broadcast the power of personal stories in living rooms all across America,” the president said at the award ceremony. “He helped change hearts and minds through honest and open dialogue. And 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.”
