Longtime TV talk show host Phil Donahue died Sunday night after a long illness, his family announced. He was 88 years old.
Donahue died at home surrounded by his family, including his wife of 44 years, actor Marlo Thomas, his sister, his children, grandchildren and his beloved golden retriever, Charlie, his family said in a statement to Today.
No further details about his cause of death have been released.
Craig Melvin and Sheinelle Jones broke the news of Donahue’s death during the third hour of TODAY on Monday morning.
“You know, we overuse the word ‘pioneer’ sometimes, but he certainly was a pioneer,” Chenel said.
The journalist pioneered the modern format of the audience-participation, issues-themed daytime talk show, and his show became one of the most influential of its time, with Donahue winning nine Daytime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Host.
Donahue was born in Cleveland in 1935 and began his career as a radio journalist in the 1950s.
Donahue married his first wife, Margaret Mary Cooney, in 1958 and had five children. The couple divorced in 1975.
He began hosting the television show “The Phil Donahue Show” in front of a studio audience in Ohio in 1967. The show went national a few years later and moved to Chicago before relocating to New York in 1985.
The show, renamed “Donahue,” aired its final episode in 1996 after 29 years on the air.
Donahue met Thomas while filming the show in 1977, and the two later said in an interview that it was “love at first sight.” They married in 1980.
In addition to hosting his own eponymous show, Donahue appeared regularly on Today from 1979 to 1988. Thomas, an Emmy Award-winning actor and national outreach director for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, has also appeared on Today.
In 2022, she gave an update on her husband to Craig, Sheinelle, Al Roker and Dylan Dreyer on the third hour of TODAY.
“He loves watching talk shows and yelling on set, ‘That’s not a question!'” Thomas said, drawing laughter from the hosts.

Donahue briefly returned to television in 2002, hosting a show called “Donahue” on MSNBC, which was canceled after a few months.
President Joe Biden awarded Donahue and 18 others the Presidential Medal of Freedom in May. According to the White House, the medal is the United States’ highest civilian honor and is awarded to “individuals who have made exemplary contributions to American prosperity, values, or security, world peace, or other significant societal, public, or private causes.”
In a statement, Donahue’s family asked that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital or the Phil Donahue/Notre Dame Scholarship Fund.