Talk-show host Phil Donahue, 88, died on August 18. From 1967-96, he hosted The Phil Donahue Show (later Donahue), first in Ohio, then nationwide. The show—like most of its kind—mixed celebrity guests and important social issues with trashy tabloid kitsch. With his amiable demeanor and mop of gray hair, he brought a chatty, non-threatening presence to his show, which was a huge hit. In the most backhand of compliments, Oprah Winfrey said that “Without Donahue, there never would have been an Oprah.” Donahue recently spoke of his retirement: “I do miss it occasionally. Sometimes I’ll shout my question to a guest on the screen and hope they’ll somehow hear me. But to be honest, even though the medium has changed a bit — the sets are fancier, the productions are slicker, and the hosts are thankfully more diverse — all of the talk shows still cleave to the one thing that laid at the foundation of the 7,000 episodes I taped, and that’s curiosity.” Donahue is survived by his second wife (since 1980), actress Marlo Thomas.
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