Phil Donahue, a groundbreaking host in daytime TV, whom Oprah Winfrey once credited for her own legacy as a talk show host, has passed away at 88. Donahue “died Sunday night at home surrounded by his wife of 44 years, Marlo Thomas, his sister, his children, grandchildren, and his beloved golden retriever, Charlie,” his family said in a statement. His cause of death has not been disclosed, but he had been suffering from a “long illness,” according to Donahue’s loved ones.

“If there had been no Phil Donahue show, there would be no Oprah Winfrey Show,” Winfrey wrote in the September 2002 issue of O, the Oprah Magazine. “He was the first to acknowledge that women are interested in more than mascara tips and cake recipes—that we’re intelligent, we’re concerned about the world around us, and we want the best possible lives for ourselves.”

Born on December 21, 1935, in Cleveland, Ohio, Donahue began his TV journalism career in the 1950s via talk radio and television after first pursuing a business degree from Notre Dame. Donahue is best remembered for his eponymous talk show, which debuted in 1967 from his home state and later moved to New York City in 1985. The hour-long show involved frequent audience participation—“Is the caller there?” became a signature refrain—and delved into hot-button topics, including abortion, child abuse in the Catholic Church, and the Ku Klux Klan.

“We started locally in Dayton with two cameras and no stars—we could only afford to fly in two guests a week,” Donahue told Winfrey in 2002. “We had no couches, no announcers, no band, and folding chairs, no jokes. I wasn’t saying, ‘Come on down!’ We knew we were visually dull, so we had to go to issues—that’s what made us alive.”

His nationally syndicated The Phil Donahue Show, later renamed Donahue and relocated to Chicago in 1974, reached more than 200 stations nationwide. During its 26-year run, his show became the first American program to be shown in the Soviet Union, in 1987. Three years later, it was the first American talk show to interview Nelson Mandela following the South African president’s release from prison. And in 1992, Donahue hosted the presidential primary debate between Bill Clinton and Jerry Brown. He won more than a dozen Emmy Awards, as well as a Peabody Award.

Donahue ended his series in 1996, nearly two decades after receiving his greatest gift from the show: a chance meeting with his second wife, Marlo Thomas. The actor best known for starring in ABC’s trailblazing sitcom That Girl was a guest on Donahue’s show in 1977, where Thomas told Donahue: “You are wonderful,” grasping his hand. “You are loving and generous, and you like women and it’s a pleasure. And whoever the woman in your life is, is very lucky.” Donahue and Thomas married in 1980.

After a six-year hiatus, Donahue briefly returned to television in 2002, hosting another Donahue show for MSNBC, which was canceled six months later due to low ratings, according to The New York Times. But a leaked internal memo suggested that Donahue was viewed as a “difficult public face for NBC in a time of war,” providing “a home for the liberal antiwar agenda” as he opposed the US invasion of Iraq.

“They were terrified of the antiwar voice,” Donahue told Democracy Now! in 2013. “And that is not an overstatement. Antiwar voices were not popular. And if you’re General Electric, you certainly don’t want an antiwar voice on a cable channel that you own; [former US secretary of defense] Donald Rumsfeld is your biggest customer.” He added, “It really is funny almost, when you look back on how—how the management was just frozen by the antiwar voice. We were scolds. We weren’t patriotic. American people disagreed with us. And we weren’t good for business.”

Following his exit from MSNBC, Donahue wrote, produced, and codirected the 2007 documentary Body of War, which was shortlisted for an Oscar. In 2020, he and Thomas released a book called What Makes a Marriage Last: 40 Celebrated Couples Share With Us the Secrets to a Happy Life, and later cohosted a podcast together called Double Date With Marlo Thomas & Phil Donahue. Three months before his death, Donahue was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Joe Biden. Thomas received the honor in 2014 from Barack Obama.

Donahue is survived by Thomas and four children from his first marriage. His son James “Jim” Patrick died in 2014 of an aortic aneurysm at age of 51.