Age, Biography, and Wiki
- Birth Date: April 27, 1932
- Birth Place: Detroit, Michigan
- Ethnicity: Lebanese Druze
- Occupation: Radio DJ, Voice Actor
- Notable Roles: Host of "American Top 40," Voice of Shaggy in "Scooby-Doo"
- Wikipedia Page
| Occupation | Voice Actors |
|---|---|
| Date of Birth | 27 April 1932 |
| Age | 93 Years |
| Birth Place | Detroit, Michigan, U.S. |
| Horoscope | Taurus |
| Country | U.S |
| Date of death | 15 June, 2014 |
| Died Place | Gig Harbor, Washington, U.S. |
Height, Weight & Measurements
There is limited public information available about Casey Kasem's precise height and weight.
Nightly features included Kasem labeling songs as "...of the night", with random phrases or names as a descriptor. The payola scandal which enveloped Alan Freed's career emerged after Kasem joined WJW; in response, Kasem began a regular comedy bit called the "Payola Tune of the Night" which WJW management encouraged under the assumption it would dissuade listeners from thinking he was under investigation as well. Ultimately, Kasem's career was not negatively impacted by the payola scandal. One notable stunt involved Kasem and Diana Trask engaging in an 85-second-long kiss for a "world record" distinction on September 14, 1959, with his news reader describing the kiss on-air. While hosting Cleveland Bandstand, Kasem started to take pep pills to lose weight; one day he forgot them while en route to the station, with the resulting pang of conscience after retrieving them from his apartment prompting him to give up the habit entirely.
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Dating & Relationship Status
- Marriage: First marriage to Linda Myers from 1972 to 1979, then married to Jean Kasem in 1980 until his death in 2014.
- Children: Three children from his first marriage (Kerri, Mike, and Julie) and one child (Liberty) from his second marriage.
He was named after Mustafa Kemal Atatürk whom his father respected. Kasem's parents did not allow their children to speak Arabic and insisted that they assimilate into American life.
After the war, Kasem began his professional broadcasting career in Flint, Michigan, then worked at Detroit's WJLB and WJBK—and portrayed children's television host "Krogo the Clown" —but left broadcasting to help tend to the family grocery store in Fenton, Michigan. Kasem unsuccessfully attempted work as a stage actor in New York City for six months, auditioning for a role in the off-Broadway production Ivan Of, but lost out to Ed Asner. Returning to Detroit, Kasem re-applied at WJBK but was promptly referred to co-owned WJW, which not only had a late-evening slot open but a hosting role for Cleveland Bandstand over WJW-TV as well. Cleveland's emerging status as a popular music epicenter appealed to Kasem, having been aware of WERE's Bill Randle dating back to when Randle worked in Detroit. Kasem identified himself as "Casey at the Mike" owing to varied misspellings of his name in both contemporary news accounts and station promos.
Kasem acted in a number of low-budget movies and radio dramas. While hosting "dance hops" on local television, he attracted the attention of Dick Clark, who hired him as co-host of a daily teenage music show called Shebang, starting in 1964. Kasem's roles on network TV series included Hawaii Five-O and Ironside. In 1967, he appeared on The Dating Game, and played the role of "Mouth" in the motorcycle gang film The Glory Stompers. In 1969, he played the role of Knife in the film Wild Wheels, and had a small role in another biker movie, The Cycle Savages, starring Bruce Dern and Melody Patterson, and The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant (also with Dern). Kasem's voice was the key to his career. In 1964 during the Beatlemania craze, Kasem had a minor hit single called "Letter from Elaina", a spoken-word recording that told the story of a girl who met George Harrison after a San Francisco Beatles concert. At the end of the 1960s, he began working as a voice actor. In 1969, he started one of his most famous roles, the voice of Shaggy on Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!. He also voiced the drummer Groove from The Cattanooga Cats that year.
In June 2009, Premiere announced it would no longer produce Kasem's two remaining countdowns, ending their eleven-year relationship. Kasem, by this point at age 77, decided against finding another syndicator or replacement host, citing a desire to explore other avenues such as writing a memoir. He sent a press release announcing he would retire from radio on the July 4 weekend, the 39th anniversary of the first countdown show.
In 2002, Kasem returned to the role of Shaggy, agreeing to continue on the condition that his character returned to vegetarianism (based on his personal lifestyle). In 2009, he retired from voice acting, with his final performance being the voice of Shaggy in Scooby-Doo! and the Samurai Sword. He did voice Shaggy again for "The Official BBC Children in Need Medley", but went uncredited by his request. Although officially retired from acting, Kasem provided the voice of Colton Rogers, Shaggy's father, on a recurring basis for the 2010–2013 series Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, once again uncredited at his request.
In 1989, Kasem purchased a home built in 1954 and located at 138 North Mapleton Drive in Holmby Hills, Los Angeles, previously owned by developer Abraham M. Lurie, as a birthday present for his wife, Jean. In 2013, Kasem and his wife put the home on the market for US$43 million. After the dueling lawsuits between Kasem family members were settled, the property was re-listed in 2021 for US$37.9 million.
In October 2013, Kerri Kasem announced her father had Parkinson's disease, diagnosed in 2007. However, a few months later, she said he had Lewy body dementia, which is hard to differentiate from Parkinson's. His condition left him unable to speak during his final months.
As Kasem's health worsened in 2013, his wife Jean prevented any contact with him, particularly by his children from his first marriage. On October 1, 2013, the children protested in front of the Kasem home. Some of Kasem's friends and colleagues, and his brother Mouner, joined the protest. The older Kasem children sought conservatorship over their father's care. The court denied their petition in November.
Jean removed Kasem from his Santa Monica, California, nursing home on May 7, 2014. On May 12, 2014, Kerri Kasem was granted temporary conservatorship over her father, despite her stepmother's objection. The court ordered an investigation into Casey Kasem's whereabouts after his wife's attorney told the court that Casey was "no longer in the United States". He was found soon afterward in Washington state.
On June 6, 2014, Kasem was reported to be in critical but stable condition in hospital in Washington state, receiving antibiotics for bedsores and treatment for high blood pressure. It was revealed he had been bedridden for some time. A judge ordered separate visitation times for Kasem's wife and his children from his first marriage. Judge Daniel S. Murphy ruled that Kasem had to be hydrated, fed, and medicated, as a court-appointed lawyer reported on his health status. Jean Kasem claimed he had been given no food, water, or medication the previous weekend. Kerri Kasem's lawyer stated that she had him removed from artificial food and water on the orders of a doctor, and in accordance with a directive her father signed in 2007 saying he would not want to be kept alive if it "would result in a mere biological existence, devoid of cognitive function, with no reasonable hope for normal functioning." Murphy reversed his order the following Monday after it became known that Kasem's body was no longer responding to the artificial nutrition, allowing the family to place Kasem on "end-of-life" measures over the objections of Jean Kasem.
By July 19, 2014, a judge had granted Kerri Kasem a temporary restraining order to prevent Jean Kasem from cremating the body in order to allow an autopsy to be performed. However, when Kerri Kasem went to give a copy of the order to the funeral home, she was informed that the body had been moved at the direction of Jean Kasem. Kasem's wife had the body moved to a funeral home in Montreal on July 14, 2014. On August 14, it was reported in the Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gang that Kasem was going to be buried in Oslo.
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| Husband | Linda Myers (m. 1972-1979) Jean Thompson (m. 1980) |
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Net Worth and Salary
- Net Worth at Death: Estimated at $80 million in 2014.
- Salary: Noted for signing a five-year, $15 million contract with Westwood One in the late 1980s.
Career, Business, and Investments
Casey Kasem's career spanned decades, with significant contributions to radio broadcasting and voice acting:
- Radio Hosting: Co-founder and host of "American Top 40," a show that became a staple in American radio.
- Voice Acting: Most famously voiced Shaggy in the "Scooby-Doo" franchise from 1969 to 2009 and appeared in numerous commercials and films like "Ghostbusters".
- Business Ventures: Involved in real estate, as evidenced by his ownership of a Beverly Hills property valued at millions.
In the 1940s, the radio show Make Believe Ballroom reportedly inspired Kasem to pursue a career as a radio disc jockey. He received his first experience in radio covering sports at Northwestern High School in Detroit. He then attended Wayne State University, where he voiced children on radio programs such as The Lone Ranger and Challenge of the Yukon. In 1952, he was drafted into the Army and sent to Korea where he worked as a disc jockey and announcer on the American Forces Korea Network (AFKN).
After WJW switched formats to beautiful music, which Kasem attributed directly to the payola scandal, he left WJW for Buffalo's WBNY but remained in contact with friends in the Cleveland area. At KYA in San Francisco, the general manager suggested he tone down his delivery and talk about the records instead. At KEWB in Oakland, California, Kasem was both the music director and an on-air personality. He said he was inspired by a Who's Who in Pop Music, 1962 magazine he found in the trash. He created a show that mixed biographical tidbits about the artists he played, and attracted the attention of Bill Gavin, who tried to recruit him as a partner. After Kasem joined KRLA in Los Angeles in 1963, his career began to blossom and he championed the R&B music of East L.A.
In 1988, Kasem left American Top 40 because of a contract dispute with ABC Radio Network. He signed a five-year, $15 million contract with Westwood One and started Casey's Top 40, which used a different chart, the Radio & Records Contemporary (CHR)/Pop radio airplay chart (also employed contemporaneously by Rick Dees Weekly Top 40). He also hosted two shorter versions of the show, Casey's Hot 20 and Casey's Countdown. During the late 1990s, Kasem hosted the Radio Hall of Fame induction ceremony.
Social Network
Casey Kasem did not have a social media presence during his lifetime, given the era in which he lived.
In the late 1970s, Kasem portrayed an actor who imitated Columbo in the Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries two-part episode "The Mystery of the Hollywood Phantom." He portrayed a golf commentator in an episode of Charlie's Angels titled "Winning is for Losers", and appeared on Police Story, Quincy, M.E. and Switch. In 1977, Kasem was hired as the narrator for the ABC sitcom Soap, but quit after the pilot episode because of the show's controversial content. Rod Roddy took his place on the program. For a period from the late 1970s to the early 1980s, he was the staff announcer for the NBC television network. In 1984, Kasem made a voice cameo in Ghostbusters, reprising his role as the host of American Top 40.
Kasem voiced Mark in Battle of the Planets and several Transformers characters: Bluestreak, Cliffjumper, Teletraan I and Dr. Arkeville. He left Transformers during the third season because he believed the show contained offensive caricatures of Arabs and Arab countries. In a 1990 article, he explained: "A few years ago, I was doing one of the voices in the TV cartoon series, Transformers. One week, the script featured an evil character named Abdul, King of Carbombya. He was like all the other cartoon Arabs. I asked the director, 'Are there any good Arabs in this script for balance?' We looked. There was one other — but he was no different than Abdul. So, I told the show’s director that, in good conscience, I couldn't be a part of that show."
As for Kasem's distinctive voice quality, "It's a natural quality of huskiness in the midrange of my voice that I call 'garbage,'" he stated to The New York Times. "It's not a clear-toned announcer's voice. It's more like the voice of the guy next door."
Education
There is limited information available about Casey Kasem's educational background.
Conclusion
Casey Kasem's legacy extends far beyond his financial success, leaving a lasting impact on the entertainment industry through his iconic roles and contributions to music and radio. Despite the challenges faced by his family following his death, his memory continues to inspire and entertain audiences worldwide.
