Legendary Talk Show Host Dead At 88

Legendary talk show host Phil Donahue has passed away at the age of 88, according to his family.

The staple of America’s late-night TV for decades died peacefully on Sunday night after a protracted battle with an unknown illness, family members admitted on “Today” Monday morning. They add Donahue was surrounded by loved ones including his wife of 44 years, Marlo Thomas, the New York Post reports. Others present included his sister, his children, his grandchildren and his beloved golden retriever, Charlie. They asked that gifts be given to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital or the Phil Donahue/Notre Dame Scholarship Fund in lieu of flowers.

(VOTE: Are You Supporting TRUMP Or KAMALA In November?)

Born December 21, 1935, Donahue concocted his 29-year run of “The Phil Donahue Show” beginning in his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio, in 1967 before rising to a national audience. His final broadcast from New York City came in 1996. The media personality and cultural commentator fixed his show’s discussions around some of the country’s most polarizing topics including abortion, gay marriage, and 20th century wars. He covered the pervasive influence of the Ku Klux Klan on American society and was one of the first TV hosts to question Catholic dogma around the church’s handling of sexual abuse allegations stretching back to the 1950s.

Flashback: Phil Donahue Interviews Donald Trump

Donald Trump appeared on the Phil Donahue Show to promote his book "The Art of the Deal" on December 15, 1987. pic.twitter.com/U5aZKp0kzs

— Wojciech Pawelczyk (@WojPawelczyk) August 19, 2024

His influence on TV personalities is vast; asked in 2018 about who inspired her, Oprah Winfrey stated, “If it weren’t for Phil Donahue, there would never have been an Oprah Show.” After moving to 30 Rockefeller Plaza in 1985, “The Phil Donahue Show” hosted cultural heavyweights including Muhammad Ali, Whoopi Goldberg, Billy Crystal, Muhammad Ali, Steve Martin, Donald Trump, and Jamie Lee Curtis. Donahue was the first American journalist to interview Nelson Mandela following his release from a South African prison in 1990. In 2002 he was briefly invited back on MSNBC to host a show but was let go after less than a year; shortly after an internal memo was leaked showing that company executives feared his public opposition to the looming invasion of Iraq would make Donahue a “difficult public face for NBC in a time of war.”

Donahue collected seemingly every accolade offered to his profession and more. He won 20 Emmy Awards during his broadcasting career as well as a Peabody Award in 1980. In 1993 he was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame, and three months before his death President Joe Biden bestowed on Donahue the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor for a civilian.

Five years after retiring from his eponymous show, Donahue reminisced on the period of American history that he was fortunate enough to cover. “We grew up with the feminist movement, the consumer movement, the gay rights movement, we grew up with the antiwar movement, with the environmental movement,” Donahue said in an interview in 2001. ” The last part of the 20th century, the time in which I was able to go out there in public on television and feature the people who had the most to say about these very compelling issues, had my name on it.”

(FREE RED HAT: “Impeached. Arrested. Convicted. Shot. Still Standing”)