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.
Interviewees on "Donahue," as it was later dubbed, included Bill Clinton, Robin Williams, Dolly Parton, Muhammad Ali, Richard Pryor, Gloria Steinham, Nelson Mandela and many more.
The show, which moved from Ohio to Chicago and then New York City, accrued 20 Daytime Emmy awards over its 29-year run, with its host earning an individual lifetime achievement Emmy Award in 1996, the same year the show ended. Donahue returned to host the show's second iteration six years later; however, it didn't have the same power as before. Depending on who you ask, lower ratings were chalked up to a number of factors including the rise of the more shocking TV talk shows, Oprah Winfrey joining the fray and Donahue interviewing opponents to the Gulf War. Several stations dropped the struggling show, and Donahue himself decided to bow out before it was outright canceled. The last episode aired in 1996.
Donahue also briefly hosted a show for MSNBC beginning in 2002, but was fired in 2003 for his stance against the Iraq War. He later went on to write, co-direct, and produce the documentary "Body of War" (2007), which highlighted an Iraq War veteran.
In 2024, President Joe Biden awarded Donahue the Presidential Medal of Freedom, alongside Olympic swimmer Katie Ledecky and Academy Award-winning actor Michelle Yeoh.
