\nDonahue died \u201cpeacefully\u201d at his home Sunday, August 18, following a long illness. He was surrounded by his wife of 44 years, Marlo Thomas, as well as \u201chis sister, his children, grandchildren and his beloved golden retriever, Charlie,\u201d according to a statement shared with Today.\n
Born in 1935, Donahue began his career in media in the late 1950s. After working as a local reporter in his native Ohio, Donahue launched his eponymous talk show.\n
\n
It initially aired on a local CBS affiliate before changing to a local NBC affiliate in Dayton, Ohio in 1967. Three years later it was picked up for syndication and aired around the country.\n
His talk show was known for covering controversial topics from child abuse in the Catholic Church to the former grand wizard of the Knights of the KKK.\n
The Phil Donahue Show, later changed to Donahue, paved the way for future daytime talk shows.\n
Donahue\u2019s show was the first to allow audience members to question guests.\n
\n
\u201cOne day, I just went out in the audience, and it\u2019s clear there would be no Donahue show if I hadn\u2019t somehow accidentally brought in the audience,\u201d Donahue told WGN in an interview.\n
In addition to paving the way for other daytime hosts such as Oprah Winfrey and Sally Jesse Raphael, Donahue won 20 Emmy Awards and most recently was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Biden.\n
Donahue\u2019s family requested in lieu of flowers donations be made to to St. Jude Children\u2019s Research Hospital or the Phil Donahue\/Notre Dame Scholarship Fund.\n
Phil Donahue, we will miss you. Thank you for all your contributions to daytime television. May you rest in peace.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Donahue died \u201cpeacefully\u201d at his home Sunday, August 18, following a long illness. He was surrounded by his wife of 44 years, Marlo Thomas, as well as \u201chis sister, his children, grandchildren and his beloved golden retriever, Charlie,\u201d according to a statement shared with Today. Born in 1935, Donahue began his career in media in\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":86941,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[670],"tags":[693],"class_list":{"0":"post-86935","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-news"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/justmetalking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Phil-donahue2.webp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/justmetalking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/justmetalking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/justmetalking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justmetalking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justmetalking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86935"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/justmetalking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86942,"href":"https:\/\/justmetalking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86935\/revisions\/86942"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justmetalking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/justmetalking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justmetalking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justmetalking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}