Legendary daytime talk show host Phil Donahue passed away on Sunday at his home on the Upper East Side of Manhattan "following a long illness," according to a statement from his family shared with TODAY. He was 88.
Donahue's prolific career began operating in full swing with "The Phil Donahue Show," which he started in 1967 in Dayton, Ohio, not far from where he had grown up in Cleveland. The show gained a reputation for being deeply innovative, allowing audience members to ask guests questions and exploring matters deemed controversial: child abuse in the Catholic church, race relations, sex and the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s, among other topics. Donahue went behind bars at a maximum security prison in Ohio to learn more about the carceral system in the U.S. The New York Times reported that Donahue even televised a birth, an abortion, a reverse vasectomy and a tubal litigation. “I want all the topics hot," Donahue was said to have told his staff, per The Times.
