Sunday, June 15, 2014

Casey Kasem 1932-2014

Casey Kasem, who was the original host of the radio show American Top 40 and the voice of the character Shaggy on the cartoon Scooby-Doo Where Are You!, died earlier today of complications from dementia.  He recently had gone missing, but turned up in Washington state.

Kemal Amen Kasem was born on April 27, 1932 in Detroit to parents who had immigrated from Lebanon and worked as grocers.  Kasem graduated from Wayne State University and worked as a radio disc jockey and announcer, including a stint in the Armed Forces Radio Korea Network after being drafted into the U.S. Army.  He hosted American Top 40 from 1970 to 1989, and again from 1998 to 2004.

Kasem was married twice, first to Linda Myers (1972-1979), with whom he had three children, and then to Jean Thompson (1980-2014), with whom he had his fourth child.

Read more at the New York Daily News, Entertainment Weekly and The Hollywood Reporter.

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