Phil Donahue Once Wrote a Book About Marriage — Who Were His Wives?

There was a period of time in the '80s where, in the talk show world, it didn't get much bigger than Phil Donahue . But then a news anchor out of Chicago named Oprah Winfrey (you may have heard of her) came along, and, well, the "king of daytime talk" was dethroned. But Phil's pioneering show ran for 29 years, and was the first of its kind to bring audience participation into the talk show format. Oprah even said that "If it weren't for Phil Donahue, there would never have been an Oprah show . "

Phil covered a lot of ground with his show, discussing a range of social and political topics from civil rights and homosexuality to abortion and feminism, and the trailblazing program took home a slew of Emmy awards for it. Meanwhile, in his personal life, Phil was married twice. His second marriage lasted for 44 years, until Phil passed away on Aug. 18, 2024 . Below, we take a look at Phil's marriages.

Phil Donahue was married twice.

Phil married his college sweetheart, Margaret Cooney, in February 1958, and within the next six years, they welcomed five children — Michael, Kevin, Daniel, Mary Rose, and James — two of whom were born in the same year. But after 17 years together, Margaret pulled the plug on their union. Per a 1980 profile in The Washington Post , their 1975 divorce settlement awarded her custody of their daughter while Phil was given custody of their four sons. Margaret moved back to her native New Mexico and got remarried.

Phil ended up remarrying too, in 1980, to actress Marlo Thomas . She'd been on his program twice, and during her second appearance in 1977, things clearly clicked between them on the air. "I'm sorry that we are out of time; you are really fascinating," he said to her as he took her hand at the end of the episode.

"No, but you are wonderful," Marlo responded. "I said it when we are off the air, and I wanna say you are loving and generous and you like women and it's a pleasure, and whoever is the woman in your life is very lucky."

Though they started out as a long-distance couple while dating — with Marlo in New York and Phil in Chicago — Phil moved to New York City when they got married and began producing his show from there. Marlo took on the role of stepmom to Phil's kids, though she later explained that she was careful to never try to take the place of their mother.

"From the very first day, I decided that I was not going to try to be a 'mother' to Phil's children in the traditional sense — they already had a mom — but, instead, to be their friend," she told AARP in 2011. "I'm proud to say that the friendships I established with them are as strong today as they were 30 years ago — even stronger."

In 2020, Phil and Marlo released a book together called What Makes a Marriage Last: 40 Celebrated Couples Share with Us the Secrets to a Happy Life. As for their own secret? Well, as the two jointly told Fox News that year: "As we say in the book, the secret to any successful marriage is that there is no single secret. There are a million of them. That’s why the book turned out better than we ever imagined it would."

"I believe that marriage is a cushion of life, and it does help you get up and over whatever issue it is and get through it to the other side," Marlo explained to CBS in 2020. "And every time you do that for each other, that braid of love and trust and steel just gets tighter and tighter, so that somebody else can't break it."