Marge Cooney is the first wife of Phil Donahue. Marge Cooney’s husband is an American media personality, writer, film producer, and the creator and host of The Phil Donahue Show. The television program, later known simply as Donahue, run for 29 years on National television beginning in 1967 and ending in 1996. The show was the first talk show format that included audience participation mainly focused on issues that divide liberals and conservatives in the United States.

Marge Cooney: Bio Summary

Who is Phil Donahue’s wife Marge Cooney?

Marge Cooney is the first wife of the pioneer and host of “The Phil Donahue Show,” later known as “Donahue.”, Phil Donahue. Though it’s unclear how the former lovers met, Conney and Donhue were college sweethearts. After graduating from Notre Dame, Phil aspired to a career in broadcasting.   In the summer of 1957, he worked as a replacement announcer at KYW-AM and KYW-TV in Cleveland.   Seeking a more stable job, he moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, the hometown of his then-girlfriend who became his wife, Margaret “Margie” Cooney.  Unable to find permanent employment as a broadcast journalist, he took a job as a cheque sorter at a bank in Albuquerque.

Phil Donahue and Marge Cooney’s marriage

Donahue and Cooney tied the knot on February 1, 1958, in a beautiful wedding ceremony in the presence of their friends, families, and loved ones. Before he meet and married his first wife, Phil Donahue revealed that as an adolescent he considered “dates always an occasion for sin.” He was a devout Catholic and a former choirboy. Donahue calls himself a “shy, insecure, vulnerable man-child”, the Washingtonpost revealed.

The former Show Host revealed in his first book “Donahue: My Own Story” that he was a virgin before he took his first wife Margaret Cooney to the altar and was a lousy lover afterward. The book also revealed that Phil avoided the draft through fatherhood.

Their marriage was blessed with five children- Mary Rose Donahue, Jim Donahue, Daniel Donahue, Michael Donahue, and Kevin Donahue-two of the children were born in the same year. Though things started on a good note, it got sour along the line. After 17 years, Marge left him. The divorce settlement gave her custody of the daughter and him the four boys.

Aside said earlier, the show host was a devout Catholic and a former choirboy, however, he now sees the Catholic Church as racist, sexist, and destructive even though he still considers himself a Catholic. Donahue has stated, “I will always be a Catholic. But I want my church to join the human race and finally walk away from this antisexual theology”. Part of this newfound thinking could also be due to the controversy that trailed his divorce from his first wife Marge Cooney.

ALSO, READ; Phil Donahue Children- Michael Donahue, Jim Donahue, Daniel Donahue, Kevin Donahue, Mary Rose Donahue

Phil vented his frustrations about marriage annulments to the South Florida Sentinel, he said–

“The process is medieval and un-Christian. A group of celibate men decide whether an agreement you made 20 years ago was valid in the eyes of the church[…]In my case, that union brought five children into the world. How do I explain it to them?”

Because Donahue divorced and remarried Marlo Thomas, also a Catholic without having his first marriage annulled, he wasn’t allowed to receive church sacraments. “Now, at weddings and funerals, people crawl over me to get to the [Communion) rail,” he says. “I guess it is public punishment for my sin.”

Where is Marge Cooney now?

After their marriage came to an end, Phil Donahue’s ex-wife Marge Cooney went totally out of the limelight. According to the Washingtonpost she returned to her native New Mexico and remarried. Phil Donahue also got married to actress Marlo Thomas on May 21, 1980. The couple do not have any children together. In 2014, Phil Donahue and his ex-wife Marge Cooney’s youngest son, James Donahue, 51, died suddenly from a burst aortic aneurysm.

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