His family told Today the television fixture died Sunday night surrounded by loved ones following a long illness of an undisclosed nature. That included his wife, actor Marlo Thomas, whom he married in 1980, three years after they met during a taping of his program “Donahue.”
The Donahue family asked fans wanting to make donations in his honor contribute to the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital or to the scholarship fund Donahue established at the University of Notre Dame, where he graduated in 1957.
ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images
Donahue receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Biden the White House in May. (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images)
The Ohio native was a television trailblazer credited with first establishing a format in which actively engaging audience members was essential to the program. He was on the air for nearly 30 years before stepping away from “Donahue” in 1996.
Fellow TV host Oprah Winfrey once praised Donahue for “opening the door… wide enough for me to walk through” and said her career might not have happened if not for the vision of her 20-time Emmy Award winning predecessor.
