When Phil Donahue Became Cleveland’s Biggest Star

In the summer of 1980, the hottest ticket in Cleveland wasn’t for a concert. It certainly wasn’t for the Indians.

It was for a week of tapings of the Phil Donahue Show at the Front Row Theater in Highland Heights.

“He’s the biggest thing to hit Cleveland since the Beatles or Prince Charles blew into town,” wrote the Cleveland Press, describing Donahue as the “Cleveland-born Prince Regent and Golden Dome of daytime television talk show celebrities.”

A graduate of the first class at Lakewood St. Edward High School, Donahue returned home after graduating from Notre Dame to work at what was then KYW (now WKYC-TV and WTAM radio). He ventured on to Michigan and Dayton, where he started a TV talk show, which became syndicated in 1970. It was not only a ratings smash, but a cultural touchstone.

Fresh off receiving an honorary doctorate from Bowling Green State University, Donahue started taping episodes of his show on June 29, with special guests including former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, who had just returned from an unsanctioned trip to Iran during the hostage crisis, and Oscar-winning actress Shelley Winters, who was so anxious about the crowds she asked for pre-show wine. Also making an appearance was actress Marlo Thomas, who’d married Donahue in May. The two had a special reception that week at the Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum (now the Cleveland History Center).

It was a homecoming for Donahue, who got a chance to see — among others — his mother, his sister and her family, and George O’Donnell, who went to elementary school and college with him. Even his old prom date was there.

It was estimated that 16,000 people came out to see the week of tapings — and another 100,000 were turned down for tickets.

“If word got out that, say, he was going to visit the Art Museum, the place would be mobbed with 10,000 people,” O’Donnell said.

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