Phil Donahue and Marlo Thomas were married for 44 years, and she was by his side when the talk show host died at his home on Sunday, August 18, at the age of 88.
“I lost my sweetheart last night,” Thomas wrote on Facebook Monday, calling Donahue her “beloved Phillip.” She included one of her favorite photos of the couple, taken when they were younger and on vacation.
The couple fell in love live on television.
“It was kind of love at first sight,” Thomas recalled on “Late Night with Seth Meyers” in 2021. “Something chemical happened.”
They initially kept their marriage out of the spotlight, but they’ve spoken more publicly about it and given relationship advice in recent years, even hosting a podcast about marriage success in 2021 called “Double Date with Marlo Thomas & Phil Donahue.”
How did Phil Donahue meet Marlo Thomas?
The couple became friends when she was a guest on his talk show in 1977.
It was actually the second time they had met, Donahue recalled in the couple’s 2020 book, “What Makes a Marriage Last: 40 Celebrity Couples Share the Secrets to a Happy Life.”
The first time was in 1972, when Thomas was promoting a television special and came to Dayton, Ohio, where his show was then airing. She was an actress, author, and social activist best known for the television series “That Girl” and her children’s book series, “Free To Be…You & Me.”
Donahue found her beautiful, bright and “the perfect guest,” he wrote, but her appearance was not as memorable as the next time they met.
Five years later, Thomas was back on her show, this time in the Chicago studio. Donahue was recently divorced. She was single.
A clip of “Donahue” posted to Thomas’ YouTube page shows the couple exchanging smiles and warm glances as they chat. “Instant chemistry!” Thomas wrote in the caption. “We were flirting like crazy,” she told Meyers.
“You’re really fascinating,” Donahue told her, taking her hand.
“You’re wonderful,” Thomas replied, placing his other hand on hers. “You’re loving and generous, you love women and it’s a pleasure. Whoever the woman in your life is, she’s very lucky.”
They had dinner afterward, and he told her he doubted he would ever marry again. She liked his attitude because she wasn’t looking to get married either, Thomas wrote in AARP magazine. “I was the girl who never wanted to be part of it,” she wrote in their book.
Love blossomed because they didn’t feel the pressure to say “yes.”
“If Phil and I had been younger, we might have been more impatient and missed each other. But being older – me in my late 30s, Phil in his early 40s – we trusted our hearts and made an effort,” she wrote.
“For many, love is better the second time around, but for me, the first time went very well.”
After a long-distance relationship – he lived in Chicago, she in Los Angeles – the couple married in 1980.
What is the age difference between Phil Donahue and Marlo Thomas?
There was a two-year age difference. Phil Donahue was born in December 1935 and Marlo Thomas was born in November 1937.
Did Phil Donahue and Marlo Thomas Have Children?
No. Donahue had five children from a previous marriage: four sons, Michael, Kevin, Daniel and James; and a daughter, Mary Rose.
Thomas became a stepmother to her children, writing that she had decided to be their friend rather than a mother in the traditional sense.
Their secrets to a successful marriage
Thomas said the secret to keeping their marriage strong and lasting can be summed up by “the three Ls: love, listening and lust,” she told People in 2023.
“You have to listen and then you will know what the other person really thinks and experiences. You have to love each other. And without desire, you have nothing,” she explained.
In 2015, Thomas told TODAY that she and Donahue don’t criticize each other’s projects — another secret to their enduring relationship.
“The secret to good communication: Yelling helps,” Donahue joked in an interview with AARP. “At least you know if the person you’re yelling at is listening. Then go to the other room and count to 10.”
Over the years, we learn that it’s not all bad, Thomas adds.
In 2020, the couple wrote their book, “What Makes a Marriage Last.” It was the first time they worked on a joint project, breaking a “hard and fast rule of our marriage” of not working together, they wrote in AARP magazine.
It came after Donahue and Thomas were shaken when a friend told them she was divorcing her husband of 28 years.
“Where did they go wrong, we asked ourselves, and more to the point, where did we do something right?” the couple wrote.
Their book featured advice from famous couples who had been married for 15 years or more, including Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, Kyra Sedgwick and Kevin Bacon, and Joanna and Chip Gaines.
The lessons: Gratitude, trust, humor and occasional therapy are among the keys to a successful long-term marriage, Donahue and Thomas found.
You have to want the marriage to last, Donahue told TODAY with Hoda & Jenna. Adaptation — not compromise or trying to change someone — is the most important thing in a marriage, Thomas added. Look at your spouse, understand who they are and let them be, she advised.
“Our biggest lesson is this: There is not one secret to a lasting marriage, there are a million secrets,” the couple wrote at the end of the book.
“So keep looking for them. Because the more you look, the more reasons you will discover to stay on this path.”
