Legendary talk show host Phil Donahue has died, and he’s tangentially relevant to the BOC project in a few ways. First, while attending Notre Dame in the mid-1950s, Donahue worked at WNDU. Paul Walton was the program director who would assign BOC its late afternoon weekend time slot (which was actually a good one for a local show, as much as all the sports preemptions might indicate otherwise), and according to his son Sean (who would join BOC in the early 1980s), Paul also gave young Phil his first taste of brodcast airtime. WNDU had to offer a station ID at the top of the hour, and no one could find the usual announcer right then, so Paul pulled Phil into the studio and gave him the copy to read. The rest is history!
More to the BOC point, the 1980-81 company offered a hilarious sketch that artfully parodied his celebrity, the techniques he used to grab at audience heartstrings, and his interactions with the live audience, all expertly mimicked by Tim Daugherty.
As the sketch illuminates, daytime talk shows were known for exploiting sensationalistic topics, and The Phil Donahue Show was no exception, but Donahue stood out amongst the pack for his genuine desire to understand and empathize with his guests, especially those from marginalized groups. In the 1970s, his show pioneered bringing LGBTQ perspectives to mainstream audiences, and Donahue would become a fervent supporter of gay rights. (If you have a subscription to Rolling Stone, you can read here about his impactful compassion for AIDS patients.) In particular, he gave significant time and money to supporting queer Notre Dame students and alumni, culminating in a scholarship for LGBTQ+ student-leaders bearing his and his wife’s names, the Phil Donahue ’57 and Marlo Thomas Scholarship. You can see him talking about this advocacy in 2016 on the PBS series MetroFocus here, and his ending plea for LGBTQ equality in the Catholic Church is both bold and prescient, given that the university now includes financial support for the Donahue scholarship right alongside all of its other donation opportunities:
Donahue was a proud alumnus of WNDU and Notre Dame, who in turn can be forever proud of him.
Phil and I lived in the same dorm room in St. Edward’s Hall. Several decades apart, mind you. He visited freshman year (I think) to see the old digs. Sharp guy. Super friendly. He will be missed.