Legendary talk show host Phil Donahue dies

WASHINGTON (TND) — The host and creator of the"The Phil Donahue Show" died after a lengthy illness, according to family.

Phil Donahue's family provided a statement to "The Today Show" on Monday.

The 88-year-old television pioneer died Sunday night following a long illness, according to the statement.

No further details about his cause of death were released.

He was surrounded by loved ones at his home.

Phillip John Donahue was an American journalist writer and film producer. In May, President Joe Biden presented Donahue with the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House. The award is the nation'shighest civilian honor.

The Phil Donahue Show was reportedly the first talk show to included audience participation.

He returned to TV, hosting "Donahue" on MSNBC, but the show was canceled due to low ratings.

He was born Phillip John Donahue on Dec. 21, 1935, part of a middle-class Irish Catholic family in Cleveland.

Donahue was in the first graduating class of St. Edward High School, a Catholic all-boys preparatory school in the Cleveland suburb of Lakewood, in 1953. He graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a degree in business administration in 1957. He later rebelled against, and left, the church, though he poignantly recalled in his book that “a little piece” of his faith would always be with him.

After a series of early jobs in radio and TV, Donahue was invited to move an earlier radio talk show to Dayton’s WLWD television station in 1967. It moved in 1974 to Chicago, where it stayed for years, then ended its run in New York.

The show featured discussions with spiritual leaders, doctors, homemakers, activists and entertainers or politicians who might be passing through town. A frequent guest was his neighbor, Erma Bombeck, the humorist and syndicated columnist.

He said striking upon the show’s winning formula was a happy accident.

“It may have been a full three years before any of us began to understand that our program was something special,” Donahue wrote. “The show’s style had developed not by genius but by necessity. The familiar talk-show heads were not available to us in Dayton, Ohio. ... The result was improvisation.”

That lent a freedom to the show that persisted as it grew to No. 1 status in its class.

With an amiable style and a head of salt-and-pepper hair, Donahue boxed with Muhammed Ali. He played football with Alice Cooper. His guests gave cooking lessons, taught break dancing and, more controversially, described “mansharing,” being a mistress, lesbian motherhood or — with the help of gathered video that got shows banned in certain cities — how natural childbirth, abortion or reverse vasectomies worked.

A stop on “Donahue” became a must for important politicians, activists, athletes, business leaders and entertainers, from Hubert Humphrey to Ronald Reagan, Gloria Steinem to Anita Bryant, Lee Iacocca to Ray Kroc, John Wayne to Farrah Fawcett.

Outside of his famous talk show, Donahue pursued several other projects.

He partnered with Soviet journalist Vladimir Posner for a groundbreaking television discussion series during the Cold War in the 1980s. The U.S.-Soviet Bridge featured simultaneous broadcasts from the United States and the Soviet Union, where studio audiences could ask questions of one another. Donahue and Posner also co-hosted a weekly issues roundtable, Posner/Donahue, on CNBC in the 1990s.

Donahue also co-directed the 2006 documentary “Body of War,” which was nominated for an Oscar.

Editor's Note: The Associated Press contributed to this report.