My answer is always the same: Phil Donahue is a mensch. In Yiddish, the word means a person of integrity and honor, someone to admire and emulate, someone of noble character.
I was privileged to work with Phil in the golden era of talk TV when his Dayton-based television show first became syndicated. As the publicity director for Avco Broadcasting, I’d also worked with “Midwestern Hayride,” “50-50 Club” and with zany Paul Dixon. But my work became most meaningful when “The Phil Donahue Show” began to add stations around the country and I had the honor of being its first Promotion Director. It was obvious to me then that this was a show that would dramatically change the face of daytime television. Phil respected his audience, respected his guests, respected his staff.
It was an exciting time with audiences lined up outside the WLWD-TV studios, eager to meet Phil and participate in his engaging discussions on meaningful and important topics: politics, religion, love, health, sex. Nothing was taboo and live TV meant anything could happen. Yes, there were lots of celebrities but I often heard Phil say it was the issue-oriented shows that he found the most fun and most stimulating.
Watching Phil conduct interviews turned out to be a lifelong lesson for me. I channel him now when I conduct an interview for the Dayton Daily News. Phil had a knack for asking the questions we all really wanted to have answered. He asked them, not in a combative way, but in a conversational, friendly manner.
Personal memories? Parties at Phil’s house in Centerville. Shepherding the Donahue kids around the Ohio State Fairgrounds when the show did remote broadcasts from Columbus. Two sobering weeks inside the Ohio penitentiaries with guests like Johnny Cash and B.B. King. Standing with Phil next to an electric chair.
I remember entertaining Mel Torme who’d been asked to pinch hit when Sammy Davis had to be rushed to the hospital in Florida. When he recovered, Sammy invited Phil and our staff to come to his show and visit him backstage afterwards. I got a kick out of introducing my boss to corned beef and potato latkes at a Jewish deli in Miami Beach.
When my first child was born in Cincinnati, Phil made the trip from Dayton to attend my baby shower. When I asked him to be a guest speaker for a nonprofit organization, he willingly obliged.
Once the show left Dayton — first for Chicago, then for New York — Phil never forgot those he’d left behind. It was a treat to view the twinkling New York skyline at Christmastime on a surprise birthday cruise for Phil. Danny Thomas entertained us with a special tribute to his son-in-law.
The biggest shock was a phone call inviting my husband and me on an around-the-world trip to celebrate the Phil Donahue Show’s 25th anniversary. It was decades after I worked for the show. Phil wouldn’t let us pay for a thing. When I went to the cruise ship’s reception desk to purchase some postcard stamps, I was given the stamps and told “Mr. Donahue wouldn’t want you to pay for those.” A few years later, when the show was about to end, we were invited to another luxurious cruise, this one entitled “That’s All Folks.” Phil never notified journalists or photographers about the super glamorous trips he hosted for his staff or the lavish gifts he presented with delight.
It was bittersweet to cover the final show in New York for the Dayton Daily News.
A couple of years ago I got a call from former show producer Lorri Antosz Benson who was putting together a book of memories for Phil. Those of us who’d worked for the show were asked to write “What Phil Means to Me.” Lorri must have remembered I was a packrat. Though she had plenty of photos from the Chicago and New York years, she was having a hard time locating pictures from Dayton. Luckily, because I’d been responsible for booking photographers for the show, I’d saved many wonderful photographs and was able to contribute them to the book.
Lori later wrote to tell us she’d delivered the completed gift to a delighted Phil and Marlo. She asked if any of us wanted to order a copy for ourselves and told us how and where to send payment.
We shouldn’t have been surprised when Lorri wrote back a week later. “Don’t order the book!” she said. “Phil wants to buy one for each of you.” As I said, a real mensch.
When I heard the sad news of Phil’s death, I took out the book which had been personally inscribed to each of us by our dear friend and mentor. Next to the inscription is a big red heart sticker. “Meredith,” Phil wrote, “Me and you and the times we shared.”
One of the other entries, by Debby Harwick Glavin and Ed Glavin, who worked for Phil in the late 80′s, expressed what I’m guessing many former staffers are feeling this week. “No time in our lives has been more meaningful than our time at Donahue,” they wrote. " Phil’s compassion for the struggles of everyday Americans, his willingness to hold the most powerful people accountable for their actions and his incredible generosity helped shape our adult lives.”
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