Phil Donahue

Donahue began his career in 1957 as a production assistant at KYW radio and television when that station was in Cleveland. He got a chance to become an announcer one day when the regular announcer failed to show up. After a brief stint as a bank check sorter in Albuquerque, New Mexico, he became program director for WABJ radio in Adrian, Michigan, soon after graduating.[8] He moved on to become a stringer for the CBS Evening News and later, an anchor of the morning newscast at WHIO-TV in Dayton, Ohio, where his interviews with Jimmy Hoffa and Billie Sol Estes were picked up nationally. While in Dayton, Donahue also hosted Conversation Piece, a phone-in afternoon talk show from 1963 to 1967 on WHIO radio. In Dayton, Donahue interviewed presidential candidate John F. Kennedy, late night talk show host Johnny Carson,[9] human rights activist Malcolm X and Vietnam war opponents including Jerry Rubin.[10] In Chicago and New York City, Donahue interviewed Elton John,[11] heavyweight boxing champions Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier,[12] and author and political activist Noam Chomsky.[13]

Donahue (right) with guest Johnny Carson in August 1970

On November 6, 1967, Donahue left WHIO, moving his talk program to television with The Phil Donahue Show on WLWD (now WDTN), also in Dayton. Initially, the program was shown only on other stations owned by the Crosley Broadcasting Corporation (which would later take the name of its parent Avco Company), which also owned WLWD. But, in January 1970, The Phil Donahue Show entered nationwide syndication. Donahue's syndicated show moved from Dayton, Ohio, to Chicago in 1974; then in 1984, he moved the show to New York City, where the show was shot at a studio at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, to be near his wife Marlo Thomas.

In 1988, from the Rainbow Room, he presented a special honoring Mary Martin, with Steve Leeds and the Rainbow Room Orchestra, with guest vocalists Michael Feinstein, and Nancy Wilson. Bandleader Leeds sang the final number "Isn't it Romantic."[14][15]

After a 29-year run—26 years in syndication—and nearly 7,000 one-hour daily shows, the final original episode of Donahue aired on September 13, 1996, culminating what as of 2015 remains the longest continuous run of any syndicated talk show in U.S. television history.

While hosting his own program, Donahue also appeared on NBC's The Today Show as a contributor, from 1979 until 1988.

In the 1980s, during the Cold War period of openness by the USSR, Donahue and Soviet journalist Vladimir Posner co-hosted a series of televised discussions, known as the U.S.–Soviet Space Bridge, among everyday citizens of the Soviet Union and the United States.[16] It was the first event of its kind in broadcasting history: Donahue hosted an audience in an American city while Posner hosted an audience in a Soviet city, all on one television program. Members of both audiences asked each other questions about both nations. While the governments of both nations were preparing for nuclear war, Donahue said: "We reached out instead of lashed out." From 1991 to 1994 Donahue and Posner co-hosted Posner/Donahue, a weekly, issues-oriented roundtable program, which aired both on CNBC and in syndication.[17]

His wife Marlo Thomas created a children's version in 1988 entitled Free to Be... A Family and just as Donahue and Posner have been friends ever since, Thomas and Tatiana Vedeneyeva have also enjoyed a long and fruitful friendship.

In July 2002, Phil Donahue returned to television after seven years of retirement to host a show called Donahue on MSNBC.[18] On February 25, 2003, MSNBC canceled the show.[19][20]

Soon after the show's cancellation, an internal MSNBC memo was leaked to the press stating that Donahue should be fired because he opposed the imminent U.S. invasion of Iraq and that he would be a "difficult public face for NBC in a time of war" [21] and that his program could be “a home for the liberal anti-war agenda”.[22] Donahue commented in 2007 that the management of MSNBC, owned at the time by General Electric, a major defense contractor, required that "we have two conservative (guests) for every liberal. I was counted as two liberals."[23]

External video
Q&A interview with Donahue on Body of War, March 23, 2008, C-SPAN

In 2006, Donahue served as co-director with independent filmmaker Ellen Spiro for the feature documentary film Body of War. The film tells the story of Tomas Young, a severely disabled Iraq War veteran and his turbulent postwar adjustments. In November 2007 the film was named as one of fifteen documentaries to be in consideration for an Oscar nomination from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.[24]