Phil Donahue in His Own Words

Before Marlo Thomas married him, she was a guest on Donahue’s show

Marlo Thomas was a perfect guest. I mean, she was very good looking, very sexy, very popular and bright. She was a feminist. She knew the issues. She could speak to them in a wonderful, wonderful way. So we got an informed political figure, a sexy, attractive, popular television star [of the 1966-71 hit That Girl], and the person who is responsible for a record that I think is found on the shelves of every other house in America [Free to Be…You and Me].

Marlo Thomas and Phil Donahue attend "The Goodbye People" opening party at the Americana Hotel in New York in 1979.

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He requested a follow-up interview for off camera

She was raised Catholic, just like me…. so we had a lot of talk to talk about, and I knew I liked her right away. She’s just very, very exciting. So I called her the next day.

I’m single, I’m 35 and I don’t know what to do, you know? And all of the old lines don’t work — you know, “What’s your major?” I mean, how do you talk? I’ve already been married, I have five children, so I don’t know, somehow I stumbled through the initial lunch, and a romance developed, and we were married in 1980, and I feel very blessed, and my kids like her, and so do my grandchildren.

He was flattered when Phil Hartman parodied him on Saturday Night Live, even though watching it made his tongue stick to the roof of his mouth

Saturday Night Live did a sketch shortly after I was married, in which Marlo and I are in bed and my first wife comes in, Margie. Now, imagine I’m watching this. And the wrap-up is, they’re talking to each other, and then they conclude — the two of them — that they both agree that Phil isn’t really that much in bed. And I have to tell you, it was funny. I’d rather tell you it wasn’t.

Phil Hartman, left, as Phil Donahue on "Saturday Night Live" on March 21, 1987.

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Marlo loved the bit, and Hartman befriended him

I’m the butt of the joke, you know, not her. So she thought it was funny. It’s very flattering to have Phil Hartman, who was the first to imitate me — he told me that it made his career. That was the first imitation he did that caught on, and he introduced me to his parents. I was very flattered that, in some way, I promoted a guy’s good fortune. Phil Hartman, gone too soon.

Donahue could take a joke, but he knew his work was no joke

I think I’m Cal Ripken. Cal Ripken played in more consecutive baseball games than Lou Gehrig. He set the record, the modern record. Well, I’m certainly hardly humble to say — and pardon my vanity — I don’t know anybody who’s done 29 years, five days a week, hosting a show all alone. And if it sounds like I’m braggin’, I am. It just seemed that we talked to everybody. We had over a million people in our studio audience throughout those years. I met a lot of nice people every day of my life. Said goodbye to all of them at the end of each show.

He knew when it was time to end The Phil Donahue Show in 1996

I didn’t cry — I was probably too nervous about it — but we walked down memory lane for the last show. All my friends came. We said farewell for the last time. I was 60. I was 31 when we started the program.

Having to go in there every day to, you know, jump out of a cake and make sure you’ve got a nice, clean, crisp shirt — all that was wonderful while it lasted. But I think we chose the right time to walk, and I’d never regret it. As much of a ride as it was, it was nice to get out of the car.

His daily show wasn’t the only time he made TV history — his 1980s Space Bridge telecasts with the Russian journalist Vladimir Pozner were the first news shows aired in both the USSR and the US

We aired in prime time in 11 time zones. We went out and chose the audience. We had no trouble getting into factories in Moscow. We couldn’t get into Boeing in Seattle. I was afraid that people would think I was, you know, a dupe sucked along on this propaganda thing. So I just let go: 17 minutes into the show, I said, “You have Andrei Sakharov, essentially a prisoner in Gorky. Why is he there?” We talked about, “old men behind wooden doors make decisions in secret for you. That doesn’t bother you? You know, you can’t speak out?” Over 150 million Russians couldn’t believe what they were seeing on TV.

I said, if you could come to the United States, where would you like to visit? Hands went up all over. I ran over: “Disneyland!” “Las Vegas!” “Oxford, Mississippi!” I said, why? He said, because that is the home of your great author, William Faulkner.

And I wondered, how many Americans know that? They were much more interested in us than the American community was interested in them.