Phil Donahue, the "king of daytime talk", has passed away.

Donahue's love of broadcasting and journalism started early. By 1960, he got the first big break of his career when he landed a job at WHIO, a radio and TV station in Dayton, Ohio. He landed hard-to-get interviews with Jimmy Hoffa and Billy Sol Estes that were picked up nationally and broadcast on CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite.

In 1963, Donahue began hosting a 90-minute radio talk show called Conversation Piece, using then-new technology to allow listeners to call in with questions for his guests, which included figures like Malcolm X, John F. Kennedy, Hugh Hefner, and Martin Luther King Jr., among others. Ratings quadrupled for the show.

In 1967, Donahue brought his show to television with The Phil Donahue Show (later known as Donahue) where he set himself apart from other talk shows by focusing on one guest or issue the whole show, and allowing the audience to ask questions. Donahue said that “I realized during the commercials that these people were asking better questions than I was."

The show would end up running for 29 seasons. In 1996, in an increasingly-saturated talk show market, Donahue chose to retire his show instead of waiting for it to be cancelled. 

Over the course of his career, Donahue was awarded twenty Emmy Awards, a Peabody Award, a membership in the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame, and a Presidential Medal of Freedom, awarded in 2024.

One of the many celebrities interviewed on The Phil Donahue Show was Marlo Thomas of That Girl. Her first appearance was in 1977, and the two immediately hit it off. Donahue had divorced his wife a few years prior and had five children as a single father. The two married in 1980, and remained married for 44 years until Donahue's death.

The iconic talk show host was 88 years old.