For more than 2 decades, Westporters knew Phil Donahue and his wife Marlo Thomas as Beachside Avenue neighbors.
Most Americans knew him instead as an intelligent, innovative, provocative and compelling TV talk show host. His nearly 7,000 episodes earned 20 Emmy Awards, and drew audiences of 8 million. There was a waiting list of 18 months for studio tickets.
Donahue died yesterday, at his Upper East side home. He was 88.
Phil Donahue
Four decades ago, when Westport formed a “Homeless People’s Committee” — which led to the town’s first soup kitchen, and has evolved into today’s Homes with Hope — Donahue featured it on his show. He called it “an example of an affluent town with a social conscience.”
Years later, he was at the Westport Library, showing a documentary he produced on the Iraq war.
A fight nearly erupted, in the SRO crowd.
Then-director Maxine Bleiweis — wedged against a wall — grew worried.
Finally, she recalls, Donahue — “in his best talk show host voice” — defused tensions by saying, “I think this is the part of the program where we all hold hands and sing ‘Kumbaya.’”
In 2012, Donahue and Thomas put their Westport property on the market, for $27.5 million.
It included:
- Welcoming gates and a long drive
- A 3-bedroom, 3-full and 2-half-bath Nantucket-style home with expansive water views
- A separate 2-bedroom guest wing with a bath and private entrance
- Another building on a pond, with a fully equipped gym and “hand-crafted, tropical-designed sauna”
- A screened gazebo for “complete peaceful relaxation and bird watching”
- Environmentally friendly features, ensuring “the least waterfront maintenance possible”
- Sophisticated geo-thermal heating, a/c, electric, security and drainage systems “engineered toward the future”
- Mahogany-framed, “wind-tested” windows.
The Beachside Avenue home owned by Phil Donahue and Marlo Thomas. (Screenshot via Zillow)
When the couple left, Donahue donated 24 purple martin gourds to nearby Sherwood Island State Park.
If you’ve got a Phil Donahue story or memory, click “Comments.”
Here’s mine. Soon after the publication of my book Jocks: True Stories of America’s Gay Male Athletes, I was a guest on his show. The subject was LGBTQ people in sports.
The other guest was Bobby Valentine, former New York Mets manager and baseball star — who grew up in Stamford, and still lived there.
Before the show, and during breaks, Donahue and I talked about Westport. Valentine added his own recollections of playing baseball (and football) for Rippowam High School, against Staples.
Then the cameras rolled, and the TV host was all business.
Click here for a full obituary.