Show BackstagetDonahue Jokes with his adoring audience and (below) relaxes with hk dose friend Mario Thomas TV HOST PHIL BONfiEM ON EftfflE mmiLV LOVi Basically Phil Donahue asks days a week an hour a day 240 times a year on 155 television stations his questions form the backbone of America’s most popular most critically praised and most often awarded daytime Interview program When he is not on the air he still asks questions— of his staff Ms children himself And yet he admits that die question he can’t answer is: What Is Donahue really like? Asking It of course implies that he is somehow quite different in real life from his television image that after his show he fakes off a made and becomes Mike Douglas After some consideration Donahue thinks the main difference between his persona and the "real" Donahue is energy He has more energy on-a- ir on-cam- Just before his program starts Donahue stands to the rear of his live audience He has been briefed and he has met the guest He has joked with the audience and asked them to please help him look good Before the program starts live in his engines rev Chicago on WGN-THe is into high ready to charge past V Noman Mark h a writer on general utyfcts Chkago-lme- SB FAMILY WIBUY Fatevaiy d frtt lanc 200 people in his studio audience to become ’Energy Man" In 1974 when Donahue’s office was a trailer in the WGN parking lot a guest was going to explain how he turned his daughter into a genius The minutes without man asked for interruption to explain his methods Dondiue said 'Too long’’ 'Five minutes? Four?” 'Too long" said the implacable Donahue (Eight minutes is forever on television and every minute must move) Donahue admits "What worries me the most Is keeping the ball in the air for 240 hours a year "This is an enormously competitive business Dick Clark is on a channel opposite me with a game show in which people jump up and down and kiss If I am going to stay alive my show better be exciting too ’1 have to have a new and different show every day And It better be interesting for 60 minutes" Donahue has done over 2000 programs and he still worries "Will the guest talk too much? The audience I dream about has a sense of urgency to get into the act" If there is any slogan running through Donahue's head while he is on the air it is: "Right now Dick eiit By Nomon Mark Clark is giving away $20000" He does it by loving every person in his studio and all those at home by getting bored with a discussion before the home folks do k5y "grabbing" each woman there and communicating to her: "You've got to watch this It’s important” After each program Donahue shakes hands with every person there He thanks them with die fervor n of a minister He poses for every Instamatic snapshot and he patiently gives tips on how to make those flash cubes work Then exhausted he returns to his small WGN office The TV set has video cassettes all around it His shelves are filled with books written by upcoming guests Way up on top near a certificate saying he is an honorary citizen of the state of Maryland Is a color picture of Mario Thomas his friend Donahue’s energy is now drained his tie at half staff he wants to head home Instead he props his feet on his desk and probes himself To understand Donahue you must understand a man who would air a program showing a live birth' certain to be controversial Donahue’s point Is that daytime television can change American thought patterns small-tow- The man we see on television the man who dotes on his show is still in spirit an altar boy from Cleveland a virgin who married his college sweetheart a business major at Notre Dame University a guy who started in broadcasting as a prop man and later moved up to do the farm report a TV host in Dayton Ohio a man whose later success led directly to a divorce which shook him emotionally a bachelor father of four sons with a daughter who lives with his a man who dates Mario Thomas in a romance a guy who wants to be a news reporter or maybe a baseball player He is a man whose doubts and concerns are played before an audience of millions every day When his work is done Donahue goes home to suburban Wiimetka III and his four sons He seldom fraternizes with the guests after the program: "Out of 3000 shows I've taken three guests to lunch I work worst with the people I know best If I have a friend as a guest I’m not sure I present him well” Outside of program concerns Donahue worries about his children I have and "their physical three kids who have drivers' licenses I worry whether my kids truly appre- live-birt- h ex-wi- fe cross-countr-y well-bein- g |