Casey Kasem

In 1980, he married Jean Thompson, an actress, and was married to her till his last breath. He has one child from his second marriage.

While doctors initially diagnosed Kasem with the Parkinson’s disease in 2007, they rectified their diagnosis and revealed that he suffered from Lewy body dementia in 2013. This made him unable to speak during his final days.

Born on April 27, 1932, Kemal Amen ‘Casey’ Kasem was named after Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the famous Turkish leader, whom Casey’s father came to respect a lot. Both of Kasem’s parents were Lebanese Druze immigrants, who worked as grocers in Michigan, where he was born.

Kasem was first inspired to pursue a career in radio by a show called ‘Make Believe Ballroom’. As his first ever stint in radio, he covered Sports Day in Northwestern High School. While completing his graduation from the Wayne State University, he provided the voices for children in shows such as ‘Challenge of the Yukon’ and ‘The Lone Ranger’.

His career started off with broadcasting in Michigan. After moving to Detroit, he got involved with shows such as ‘Sergeant Preston of Yukon’ and ‘The Lone Ranger’.

Next, he moved to Los Angeles to continue a career in radio and acting by joining KRLA. Here, he was discovered by Dick Clark, who then offered him a role in a TV musical called ‘Shebang’.

From 1968 to 1969, Kasem gave voice to the character of Robin in the show called ‘The Batman/The Superman Hour’. He also appeared in the small role of ‘Knife’ in the movie ‘Wild Wheels’.

He was offered the role of voicing Scooby Doo’s sidekick, Shaggy, in the famous cartoon show ‘Scooby-Doo, Where are you!’ Kasem had no idea that this job would last him almost a lifetime. He went onto voice many other spin-offs and movies in the Scooby-Doo franchise, retiring from this job only in the year 2009.

Another significant achievement of Kasem’s career came in the year 1970, when he started his own radio program called ‘America Top 40’, where he counted down the top music tracks of the country. The show hit such peaks of success that there came a time when it was broadcast over 1000 radio channels internationally. It ran for nearly a couple of decades before wrapping up in the year 1988.

Kasem’s career flourished both as a voice actor and a radio personality. People still remember him for being the unique voice of Shaggy in the ‘Scooby-doo’ series as well as entertaining America and the world with his radio program ‘America Top 40’.