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03 February 2011

Ray Charles On Donahue's 25th Anniversary Show (1992)

From the late 60s to the mid 90s Phil Donahue hosted a series of successful talkshow formats for NBC. His last day-show format was aptly titled Donahue. On 15 November 1992 he was celebrated by fellow talk show hosts as a mentor and patriarch of the genre, with Donahue: The 25th Anniversary, directed by Gary Halvorson.
John Leonard in New York Magazine announced the content of the show like this: "[It] has everybody from Marlo [Donahue] to Muhammad Ali, from Dr. Ruth to Jerry Rubin, from Gloria Steinem to Ray Charles. It's as if your very worst dreams of daytime television got together to throw a three-ring circus in your head. Why, then, did I love every minute of the unfinished preview cassette?"
The New York Times tagged it, more matter-of-factly, as "A special saluting Phil Donahue that includes film clips of past programs, on-stage reunions and personalities he has interviewed in the past 25 years." The latter implies that Ray had been on the show before.

Who knows more?

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