Here's information on how Mike and Gen met, their children, and more.
Michael Delaney Dowd Jr. aka Mike Douglas: August 11, 1925 in Chicago, Illinois.
Genevieve Purnell: Abt. 1926 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
Mike: 8/11/2006 in North Palm Beach, Florida. He was 81 years old. Mike's family is holding a private service on 8/14/2006 in North Palm Beach, Florida.
Rather than sending flowers, the family suggests that donations be made to the Tiger Woods Foundation.
They met in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in December just before he was set to serve on the V-12 program in the U.S. Navy. He was a solo singer at a radio station and Genevieve's parents were not impressed with him.
According to the Columbus Telegram, 12-31-1975, Mike was 18 and Genevieve was 17 when they decided to get married.
A week after they first met, while at a radio station party, Mike proposed. "They had never dated, but he asked her, 'When this war is over, will you marry me?'"
Deciding not to wait to get married and not to tell her parents about their wedding plans, Mike and Gen eloped and were married by a justice of the peace in Norman, Oklahoma in 1943.
Mike and Genevieve raised three daughters. Michelle and Christine are twins. Kelly was born 13 years after the twins. They enjoyed their five grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.
- Michelle Dowd:
- Christine Dowd Voinovich: Married Paul Voinovich. Lived in Cleveland, Ohio. They have four children: Debbie, Cindy, Paul Michael, Stephan.
- Kelly Anne Dowd Donohue:
Mike: Emmy winning talk show host, actor, dancer, comedian, motivational speaker, and singer. Mike served in the U.S. Navy at the end of WWII. He authored two memoirs:
- Mike Douglas: My Story
- I'll Be Right Back: Memories of TV's Greatest Talk Show
written with Thomas Kelly and Michael Heaton
Mike also had a successful hit recording:
- The Men in My Little Girl's Life CD
Mike and Genevieve enjoyed playing golf together.
Mike and Gen retired to Palm Beach, Florida in a modest-sized colonial located in a gated community.
Mike, about Gen: "My wife, Gen, and I managed to maintain a decent lifestyle, but show business wasn't paying for it anymore, real estate was. My bride had a wonderful sense of value when it came to houses and I had learned enough watching show biz agents to negotiate good deals. We bought our first home in Burbank on the G.I. Bill for under $8,000 and sold it a few years later for double that. We moved up, found another bargain in the Valley, then doubled our money again a few years later. I wouldn't recommend it today -- it reminds me of the old Detroit saying, "You can live in your car, but you can't drive your house" -- but it worked for us time and again. In the leanest years, we lived off the profits from flipping homes in the flourishing L.A. market."
Source: I'll Be Right Back: Memories of TV's Greatest Talk Show, Chapter One.
Biography article: "Douglas has attributed their long marriage to the fact that the family has stayed together. Even when the girls were young, the whole family accompanied him on his appearances across the country. Genevieve would use their legal surname, Dowd, and insisted on remaining a private person; she refused to appear on The Mike Douglas Show. She has supported her husband's career in other ways, by traveling with him and helping with his business and creative needs."
Source: Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2006.
Article about Mike and Gen: "... and if anybody finds it hard to dislike genial Mike, it is even more difficult to fault Genevieve Purnell Douglas. Together they are an unbeatable marital package of Irish charm and Oklahoma City warmth. ... rest assured that Mike and Gen Douglas are touch, natural ingredients -- they know who they are, where they are going, and won't let anybody push them aside. But they also know where they have been. And most important, they understand why."
Source: The Chronicle Telegram, 3/12/1978.
