Phil Donahue

Phillip John Donahue (born December 21, 1935) is an American media personality, writer, film producer and the creator and host of The Phil Donahue Show. The television program, later known simply as Donahue, was the first talk show format that included audience participation. The show had a 29-year run on national television in America that began in Dayton, Ohio in 1967 and ended in New York City in 1996.His shows have often focused on issues that divide liberals and conservatives in the United States, such as abortion, consumer protection, civil rights and war issues. His most frequent guest was Ralph Nader, for whom Donahue campaigned in 2000. Donahue also briefly hosted a talk show on MSNBC from July 2002 to March 2003.Donahue is one of the most influential talk show hosts and has been called the "king of daytime talk". Oprah Winfrey has stated, "If it weren't for Phil Donahue, there would never have been an Oprah Show." In 1996, Donahue was ranked #42 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time.

Donahue's 1958 marriage to Margaret Cooney produced five children—Michael, Kevin, Daniel, Mary Rose, and James—but ended in divorce in 1975. The family had lived in Centerville, Ohio, across the street from Erma Bombeck, a comedian who would become one of his contemporaries as a national voice in the 1970s and 1980s. For a brief period in the 1970s, Donahue employed Vivian Maier, an American street photographer, as a nanny for his children.Donahue married actress Marlo Thomas on May 21, 1980. In 2014, Phil Donahue's youngest son, James Donahue, 51, died suddenly from an aortic aneurysm.Regarding his religion, Donahue has stated, "I will always be a Catholic. But I want my church to join the human race and finally walk away from this antisexual theology", as well, that he is not "a very good Catholic", and that he did not think it was necessary to have his first marriage annulled. He has expressed admiration of Pope Francis.

Donahue was born into a middle-class, churchgoing, Irish Catholic family in Cleveland, Ohio; his father, Phillip Donahue, was a furniture sales clerk and his mother, Catherine (McClory), a department store shoe clerk. In 1949, he graduated from Our Lady of Angels elementary school in the West Park neighborhood of Cleveland. In 1953, Donahue was a member of the first graduating class of St. Edward High School, an all-boys college preparatory Catholic private high school run by the Congregation of Holy Cross in suburban Lakewood, Ohio. He graduated from the University of Notre Dame, which is also run by the Congregation of Holy Cross, with a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in 1957.