Phil Donahue: Oprah 'A Once-In-A-Century-Woman' (TIME 100)

When Oprah left Baltimore to move to Chicago to launch her daytime talk show, she reportedly had one goal: to beat Phil Donahue.

Now, the former king of daytime talk has written a glowing article about Oprah for TIME's TIME 100 feature.

"There is no match for you in media history," Donahue wrote of Oprah. "You are not only hot; you are cool: the Dream Girl for millions of ambitious young women whom you've inspired all over the world. You are a once-in-a-century woman. I salute you."

Donahue described "The Oprah Winfrey Show" as "a blockbuster for our time" and said that it shook up the world of daytime TV.

"And throughout this fabulous fairyland story, you have held to a noble purpose: you leave a legacy of responsible TV stewardship, a program that brought light to dark places and made us laugh, often at ourselves," he wrote.

Read his full tribute to Oprah here.