Friday, June 27, 2014

A00090 - Ultra Violet, Warhol Superstar

Ultra Violet, Warhol Superstar, Dies at 78

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    Ultra Violet, right, in 1968 with Andy Warhol and Viva.Sam Falk/The New York Times

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    Isabelle Collin Dufresne, the French-born artist, actress and author known asUltra Violet, the beauty among the superstars of Andy Warhol’s glory days at his studio, the Factory, died on Saturday at a Manhattan hospital. She was 78 and lived in Manhattan and in Nice, France.
    The death was confirmed by William Butler, a family friend. A cousin, Carole Thouvard Revol, said the cause was cancer.
    In 1973, Ultra Violet had a near-death experience, for which she blamed her habits of excess in the decade before. In the 1980s, she condemned the rampant drug use, orgiastic sex and unchecked egotism at the Factory, repented for her part in it and became a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
    She worked as an artist until her death. A New York exhibition at the Dillon Gallery in Chelsea this spring, “Ultra Violet: The Studio Recreated,” featured a selection of her paintings, sculptures, prints, film and neon works. The show closed three weeks before she died.
    Summing up her artistic abilities in a 2009 video interview, she said: “I have infinite imagination. Maybe I don’t have too much technique.” Much of her recent work had dealt with Sept. 11, using the Roman numerals IX and XI as a graphic palindrome, and with the iconography of Mickey Mouse, whom she often depicted wearing angel wings.
    Ultra Violet with Salvador Dalí at the Huntington Hartford Museum in New York in 1969.UltraVioletweb.com
    Ms. Collin Dufresne was in her late 20s when she met Warhol while having tea at the St. Regis Hotel with the artist Salvador Dalí, a lover and an earlier mentor. It was 1964, and Warhol immediately expressed interest in having her in his films. She made her screen debut the next year under her real name in Warhol’s “The Life of Juanita Castro,” an improvised black-and-white political comedy.
    By the time she appeared in her second Warhol film, “I, a Man” (1967), which also starred Nico and Valerie Solanas (who later shot and seriously injured Warhol), she had taken the name Ultra Violet. But when she was not in character, with some combination of purple hair, purple lipstick, trowel-heavy purple eye shadow and beet juice as cheek color, she looked like the prettiest girl at the prom — a soignée brunette with a shoulder-length bouffant, delicate features and maximum false eyelashes. And she had a French accent.
    Isabelle Collin Dufresne was born on Sept. 6, 1935, in La Tronche, France, near Grenoble, to an upper-middle-class family. She often said that when she had shown rebellious tendencies as a teenager, her parents had a Roman Catholic priest perform an exorcism. Apparently, the effects were delayed.
    She was also sent to a reform school at one point and studied art in Grenoble before being “shipped off” to New York, as she always said, where it was hoped a new environment might tame her.
    As Ultra Violet, Ms. Collin Dufresne appeared in some 17 films, not counting numerous documentaries made later about the period and the Factory regulars. Even those films that were not directed by Warhol or his acolyte Paul Morrissey tended to be Warholian, dealing with the counterculture, drugs or at least fantasy or horror, and her co-stars in those non-Warhol films often included other Factory superstars, as they were known. She was in a 1970 “Cleopatra,” for instance, in which Viva played the title role.
    But Ultra Violet also appeared in “Midnight Cowboy” (1969), in a party scene with her fellow Factory habitués Viva, International Velvet and Mr. Morrissey; had a small part in Milos Forman’s “Taking Off” (1971); and played a kinky party guest in Paul Mazursky’s “An Unmarried Woman” (1978), with Jill Clayburgh. Ultra Violet’s final film acting job was in “Blackout” (1994), directed by Paulita Sedgwick, a cousin of Edie Sedgwick, the heiress and Factory starlet who died in 1971 in her 20s.
    Ultra Violet in her studio. Dozens of her works were on view at the Dillon Gallery this spring.Lizzy Sullivan
    In “Famous for 15 Minutes: My Years With Andy Warhol,” Ultra Violet’s 1988 memoir, she wrote about her return to religion after a nervous and physical breakdown. She kissed and told, naming among her past lovers Rudolf Nureyev, the artist Ed Ruscha and Mr. Forman. And she denounced the person she had been during the Warhol years as an “unleashed exhibitionist chasing headlines.”
    “I survived by grace alone,” she told a PBS interviewer in 2005.
    Ms. Collin Dufresne, who never married, is survived by two sisters, Catherine Cara and Edwige Merceron-Vicat.
    Interviewers often asked her about the decade in which she was at the center of celebrity culture. In a 2011 interview with USA Today, she said, “I mean, it was an exciting era in that there was a cultural revolution going on.” She acknowledged that there was no comparable shake-up underway in the 2000s so far, but added, “I think we are constantly in some kind of a flux.”
    She could be a serious interview subject, as when in David Henry Gerson’s 2011 documentary, “Ultra Violet for Sixteen Minutes,” she announced, “As you come closer to your true nature, you are more fulfilled.”
    But she could also jab. At an arts festival in Bridgehampton, N.Y., in 2010, she and her longtime Factory friend Taylor Mead were confronted by a young interviewer who appeared to have no idea who they were and simply presented them with generic questions like “Whose work do you like?” and “Why are you here?”
    Ultra Violet tossed off one answer, “I like my own work.” And then, as if it were 1965 again, she said, “We are here because we are world-famous.”
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    Monday, June 23, 2014

    A00089 - Casey Kasem, Wholesome Voice of Pop Radio




    Casey Kasem, Wholesome Voice of Pop Radio, Dies at 82

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      SLIDE SHOW

      Casey Kasem Dies at 82




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      Casey Kasem, a disc jockey who never claimed to love rock ’n’ roll but who built a long and lucrative career from it, creating and hosting one of radio’s most popular syndicated pop music shows, “American Top 40,” died on Sunday in a hospital in Gig Harbor, Wash. He was 82.
      His death was announced by Danny Deraney, a spokesman for Mr. Kasem’s daughter Kerri. Mr. Kasem had Lewy body dementia, a progressive disease of the body’s neurological and muscle cells.
      In his final months, Mr. Kasem, who had lived in Beverly Hills, Calif., was at the center of a family legal battle over the terms of his death, pitting his wife, the actress Jean Kasem, against his three adult children from a previous marriage. Ms. Kasem removed her husband from a Santa Monica nursing home on May 7 and took him to stay with friends in Washington State. By court order, he was moved to the hospital on June 1.




      Mr. Kasem’s “American Top 40,” which first aired in the summer of 1970, was a weekly four-hour feast of homey sentiment and American optimism that ran headlong into the prevailing spirit of rebellion in the music culture of the day.





      PLAY VIDEO|1:18

      Casey Kasem, an American Voice

      Casey Kasem, an American Voice

      At the height of his career, Casey Kasem was among the best-known D.J.’s in the country. His weekly four-hour show, “American Top 40” defined middle-of-the-road radio taste in America at the time.
      Eric Jamison/Associated Press

      The show gave new life to the Top 40 format at a time when the popularity of the 45 r.p.m. record was waning and FM disc jockeys were experimenting with more personal formats, creating playlists from their favorite long-playing album cuts.
      Mr. Kasem, instead, featured only the singles that Billboard magazine had ranked as the country’s most popular in the past week, based on its analysis of airplay — a playlist, in effect, based on the national pop consensus.
      Building a radio show on the notion that such a consensus existed was considered a risky proposition in that culturally splintered time. As Time magazine put it, “He embraced corniness as Vietnam-era cynicism peaked.” But the format struck a chord.
      Only five radio stations carried the debut of “American Top 40” on July 4, 1970. But within a year more than 100 did, and by the mid-1970s it had reached nearly 1,000 outlets “coast to coast,” as Mr. Kasem liked to say, making him one of the best-known D.J.'s in the country.
      He had modeled the show, he later told interviewers, on the old NBC radio program “Your Hit Parade” (also known as “The Lucky Strike Hit Parade”). “I thought we’d be around for at least 20 years,” he said. “Because I knew the formula worked.”
      “American Top 40” became a mainstay of American radio, offering a crowd-pleasing menu of hits seasoned with Mr. Kasem’s heartfelt readings of listeners’ song dedications, wholesome anecdotes about the lives of the pop stars, and an endless store of solid, if cringe-inducing, pieces of advice, like his touchstone signoff: “Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars.”
      (Not all the dedications were necessarily feel-good, however. A pregnant teenager addressed her boyfriend in prison, for example, and a mother begged her runaway daughter to come home.)
      Mr. Kasem also hosted a syndicated television version of the show in the 1980s. But his relationship with “American Top 40” ended in 1988 because of a contract dispute with his syndication company. The next year, he started “Casey’s Top 40,” a competing radio program on another network, bringing most of his old audience there with him.
      About 10 years later, after acquiring the rights to the name, he was again hosting a show with the title “American Top 40” (for a time he hosted both that and the competing “Casey’s Top 40”). He ended his three-decade run in 2004, handing the hosting duties to Ryan Seacrest, who continues in that role. Mr. Kasem retired in 2009.
      Mr. Kasem, who had a financial interest in his shows, had a net worth estimated by several sources at $80 million. Last year he put his house in the Holmby Hills area of Los Angeles on the market for $42 million.
      Rock ’n’ roll was never Mr. Kasem’s passion, he told interviewers. He knew his subject, and kept up with it in a professional way, but when home, he told Billboard, “I find myself just wanting to sit in my office and make it as quiet as possible.”
      “If I were doing a real rock show,” he told The New York Times in 1990, “then it would matter to know how I felt about what I was playing.” But, he added, “I’m just counting them down as they appear on the chart, 1 through 40. What really matters is what I say between the songs.”




      Casey Kasem in 2003 at the Los Angeles studio of his syndicated radio show “American Top 40.”Ann Johansson

      Between the songs Mr. Kasem managed to herald the newest of the new with a broadcast style that felt comfortingly old. He set the tone with a neighborly but precise 1940s-style diction, honed to amiable perfection in a second career as a voice-over artist. With plain-spoken warmth and a partiality to sentiments and phrases (“coast to coast” and “sweetheart” were his favorites, hands down), his delivery evoked another time.
      “Hello again, everybody,” he said to open most of his shows. “I’m Casey Kasem, and welcome to ‘American Top 40.’ I’m all set to count down the 40 most popular songs in the U.S.A.”
      When he used biographical teasers to introduce songs (“a high school dropout and a runaway, with a mother who was married six times — coming up,” referring to Cher), Mr. Kasem echoed Paul Harvey on his folksy, long-running news broadcasts. But he told The Times that the technique harked back to his childhood in a Middle Eastern immigrant neighborhood of Detroit.
      “I was drawing on the Arabic tradition of storytelling one-upmanship,” he said. “When I was a kid, men would gather in my parents’ living room and tell tales and try to outdo each other. I couldn’t understand the language, but I was fascinated.”




      Kemal Amen Kasem was born in Detroit on April 27, 1932. His parents, Amin and Helen Kasem, were Lebanese immigrants who owned a grocery store. After graduating from Wayne State University in Detroit, he worked in local radio, produced broadcasts for the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service during a stint in the Army and landed in Los Angeles, at KRLA, where he developed his trademark of introducing records with historical tidbits about the artists and their songs. For a time he also had local television dance show.
      In 1970, along with Don Bustany, a Hollywood movie producer and childhood friend, Mr. Kasem came up with the idea of a countdown radio show modeled after “Your Hit Parade” and proposed it to the syndication company Watermark Inc., which was later bought by ABC Radio Networks. Mr. Kasem had always wanted to be a movie actor, he told interviewers, but never had much success beyond cameo roles in films like “New York, New York” (1977), in which he played a 1940s disc jockey, and “Ghostbusters” (1984), in which he played himself.
      His biggest role off the radio was in the TV cartoon series “Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!” as the voice of Shaggy, the canine hero’s goofy companion. In the 1970s and ‘80s his voice was heard on television commercials for Sears, Ford, Chevron and Oscar Mayer.
      Following the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, Mr. Kasem, whose parents belonged to the Druze sect in Lebanon, an offshoot of Islam, became a vocal advocate for Middle East peace and Arab-American causes. In later years he was active in promoting Arab-Israeli dialogue, making personal appearances at mosques and synagogues around the country.
      In addition to his wife, who played the tall, blond, dimwitted characterLoretta Tortelli on the sitcom “Cheers,” and their daughter, Liberty, his survivors include his three children from a previous marriage, which ended in divorce: Julie, Michael and Kerri Kasem.
      In 2007, after he learned he had Lewy body dementia, Mr. Kasem gave his three eldest children legal authority to act as his health care proxy at whatever point he became unable to make decisions himself. The agreement stipulated that he did not want to be kept alive with “any form of life-sustaining procedures, including nutrition and hydration,” if he lost all cognitive function and was given no hope of recovery. Differences between the three older children and Mr. Kasem’s wife played out in increasingly bitter courtroom clashes in the final months.
      Mr. Kasem, with an audience of 10 million listeners in his heyday, made politeness and decorum hallmarks of his broadcast. His courtly voice seemed capable of rendering the most raunchy song titles in appropriate-sounding phonemes, and when not able, to swerve around the problem effortlessly.
      He would not say “I Want Your Sex” when that was the title of a 1987 hit song, for instance. Instead, Mr. Kasem introduced that one as “George Michael’s latest.”
      Given the audience he imagined for himself, Mr. Kasem could hardly do otherwise. “I picture people in a car, with Mom and Dad in the front seat, a couple of kids in the back seat, and a grandparent as well,” he told Billboard.
      In another interview, he said: “I feel good that you can be going to synagogue or church and listen to me, and nobody is going to be embarrassed by the language that I use, the innuendo. Quite frankly, I think we’re good for America.”

      ***

      Casey Kasem

      From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
      Casey Kasem
      Casey Kasem.jpg
      Kasem at the 1989 Emmy Awards
      BornKemal Amin Kasem
      April 27, 1932
      Detroit, Michigan, U.S.
      DiedJune 15, 2014 (aged 82)
      Gig Harbor, Washington, U.S.
      EducationNorthwestern High School
      Alma materWayne State University
      OccupationDisc jockey, music historian, radio personality, voice actor, actor
      Years active1954–2013
      Spouse(s)
      • Linda Myers (m. 1972; d. 1979)
      • Jean Thompson (m. 1980–2014) (his death)
      ChildrenWith Linda Myers: Kerri Kasem, Julie Kasem, Mike Kasem
      With Jean Thompson: Liberty Jean Kasem
      SignatureCasey Kasem (signature).png
      Kemal Amin "Casey" Kasem (April 27, 1932 – June 15, 2014) was an American disc jockey, music historian, radio personality, voice actor and actor, best known for being the host of several music radio countdown programs, most notably American Top 40, from 1970 until his retirement in 2009, and for providing the voice of "Shaggy" Rogers in theScooby-Doo franchise from 1969 to 1997, and again from 2002 until 2009.
      Kasem co-founded the American Top 40 franchise in 1970, hosting it from its inception to 1988, and again from 1998 to 2004. Between January 1989 and early 1998, he was the host of Casey's Top 40, Casey's Hot 20, and Casey's Countdown. From 1998 to 2009, Kasem also hosted two adult contemporary spin-offs of American Top 40: American Top 20 and American Top 10.
      In addition to his radio shows, Kasem provided the voice of many commercials, performed many voices for Sesame Street, provided the character voice of Peter Cottontail in the Rankin/Bass production of Here Comes Peter Cottontail, was "the voice of NBC", and helped out with the annual Jerry Lewis telethon. He provided the cartoon voices of Robin inSuper Friends, Mark on Battle of the Planets, and a number of characters for the Transformers cartoon series of the 1980s. In 2008, he was the voice of Out of Sight Retro Night which aired on WGN America, but was replaced by rivalRick Dees. After 40 years, Kasem retired from his role of voicing Shaggy in 2009, although he did voice Shaggy's father in the 2010 TV series, Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated.

      Early life

      Kasem was born in Detroit, Michigan, on April 27, 1932, to Lebanese Druze immigrant parents.[1][2] They settled in Michigan, where they worked as grocers.[3]
      In the 1940s, "Make Believe Ballroom" reportedly inspired Kasem to follow a career in radio and later host a national radio hits countdown show.[4] Kasem got his first experience in radio covering sports at Northwestern High School in Detroit.[5] He then went to Wayne State University for college. While at Wayne State, he voiced children on radio programs such as The Lone Ranger and Challenge of the Yukon.[6] In 1952, Kasem was drafted into the U.S. Army and sent to Korea. There, he worked as a DJ/announcer on the Armed Forces Radio Korea Network.[7]

      Career

      Early career

      After the war, Kasem began his professional broadcasting career in Flint, Michigan. From there, he spent time in Detroit; Buffalo, New York; and Cleveland before moving to California.[6] At KYA in San Francisco, the general manager first suggested he tone down his 'platter patter' and talk about the records instead. Kasem demurred at first, because it was not what was normally expected in the industry.[8] At KEWB in Oakland, California, Kasem was both the music director and on-air personality.[9] He created a show which mixed in biographical tidbits about the artists' records he played, and attracted the attention of Bill Gavin who tried to recruit him as a partner.[5][9] After Kasem joined KRLA in Los Angeles in 1963, his career really started to blossom.[10]
      Kasem earned roles in a number of low budget movies, and acted on radio dramas.[4][10] While hosting "dance hops" on local television, he attracted the attention ofDick Clark who hired him to co-host a daily teenage music show called Shebang starting in 1964.[5] Kasem appeared in network TV series including Hawaii Five-Oand Ironside.[6] In 1967, he played the role of "Mouth" in the motorcycle gang film The Glory Stompers. In 1969, he played the role of "Knife" in the "surfers vs. bikers" film Wild Wheels, and had a small role in another biker movie, The Cycle Savages, starring Bruce Dern and Melody Patterson.[11]
      Kasem's voice was, however, always the key to his career. 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!.[10] He also voiced the drummer Groove from The Cattanooga Cats that year.[6] In 1964, Kasem had a minor hit single called "Letter From Elaina". A spoken-word recording, Kasem told the story of a girl who met George Harrison after a San Francisco concert.[12][13]

      1970–1988: American Top 40

      On July 4, 1970, Kasem, along with Don Bustany, Tom Rounds and Ron Jacobs, launched the weekly radio program American Top 40 (AT40).[14] At the time, top 40 radio was on the decline as DJs preferred to play album-oriented progressive rock.[10] Loosely based on the TV program Your Hit Parade, the show counted down from #40 on the pop charts to #1 – the first #1 was Three Dog Night's "Mama Told Me (Not to Come)" – based on the Billboard Hot 100 each week.[5] The show, however, was not just about the countdown. Kasem mixed in biographical information about the artists, flashback, and "long-distance dedication" segments where he read letters written by listeners to dedicate songs of their choice to far away loved ones.[10] He often included trivia facts about songs he played and artists whose work he showcased. Frequently, he mentioned a trivia fact about an unnamed singer before a commercial break, then provided the name of the singer after returning from the break.[15] Kasem ended the program with his signature sign-off, "Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars."[15]
      The show debuted on seven stations, but on the back of Kasem's "always friendly and upbeat" baritone voice it soon went nationwide.[10] In the late 70s, the show expanded from three hours a week to four. American Top 40's success spawned several imitators including a weekly half-hour music video television show,America's Top 10, hosted by Kasem himself.[10] "When we first went on the air, I thought we would be around for at least 20 years," he later remarked. "I knew the formula worked. I knew people tuned in to find out what the No. 1 record was."[10] Due to his great knowledge of music, Kasem became known as not just a disc jockey, but also a music historian.[16]
      In 1971, Kasem provided the character voice of Peter Cottontail in the Rankin/Bass production of Here Comes Peter Cottontail.[6] In 1971, Kasem appeared in the low-budget film The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant, in what was probably his best remembered acting role.[10] From 1973 until 1985, he voiced Robin on severalSuperFriends franchise shows. In 1980, he voiced Merry in The Return of the King.[17] He also voiced Alexander Cabot III on Josie and the Pussycats and Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space, and supplied a number of voices for Sesame Street.[5][6]
      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 1984, Kasem made a cameo in Ghostbusters, reprising his role as the host of American Top 40.[6] For a period in the late 1970s , Kasem was also the staff announcer for the NBC television network.[5]
      Kasem was hired as the narrator for the TV show Soap, but quit the series after the pilot due to the adult themes the show promoted.[citation needed]

      1988–1998: Casey's Top 40

      In 1988, Kasem left American Top 40 due to a contract dispute with ABC Radio Network. He signed a five-year, $15 million contract with Westwood One and startedCasey's Top 40 which used a different chart to determine the top 40.[5][10] He also hosted two shorter versions of the show: Casey's Hot 20 and Casey's Countdown.[6] During the late 1990s, Kasem hosted the Radio Hall of Fame induction ceremony.[9]
      Kasem voiced Mark in Battle of the Planets and several Transformers characters: Bluestreak, Cliffjumper, Teletraan I and Dr. Arkeville.[14][17] He left Transformersduring the third season due to what he perceived as 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.[18]
      From 1989 to 1998, Kasem hosted Nick at Nite's New Year's Eve count down the top reruns of the year.[5] He also made cameo appearances on Saved by the Belland ALF in the early 1990s.[19] In 1997, Kasem's quit his role as Shaggy is a dispute over a Burger King commercial, with Billy West and Scott Innes taking over.[5][6]

      1998–2009: American Top 40 second run

      The original American Top 40, hosted by Shadoe Stevens after Kasem's departure, was cancelled in 1995. Kasem regained the rights to the name in 1997, and the show was back on the air in 1998, on the AMFM Network (later acquired by Premiere Radio Networks).[20] He retired in 2004, handing off the show to Ryan Seacrest.[10] At the end of the year, Kasem recorded several holiday-themed programs to air on stations that flip to "all-Christmas" for the holidays.[citation needed]Kasem continued to host two shorter spin-off versions of AT40: American Top 20 and American Top 10.[10]
      In April 2005, a television special called American Top 40 Live aired on the Fox network, hosted by Seacrest, with Kasem appearing on the show.[21][22] In 2008, Kasem did the voice over for WGN America's Out of Sight Retro Night.[14] He was also the host of the short-lived American version of 100% during the 1998–99 season.[11]
      Kasem retired from AT20 and AT10 on July 4, 2009, and both shows ended on that day.[23] After his 39 year run in the countdown business ended, he briefly appeared on his daughter Kerri's podcast.[1] Kasem also performed TV commercial voice overs throughout his career, appearing in more than 100 commercials in all.[6]
      In 2002, Kasem reprised the role of Shaggy when it was determined the character would be a vegetarian.[5] In 2009, he retired from voice acting, with his final performance being the voice of Shaggy in Scooby-Doo and the Samurai Sword.[24] He did voice Shaggy again for "The Official BBC Children in Need Medley", but went uncredited by his request.[25] Although officially retired from acting, he provided the voice of Colton Rogers, Shaggy's father, on a recurring basis for the 2010–2013 series Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, again uncredited at his request.[17]
      As for his recognizable 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."[7]

      Personal life

      Kasem was a devout vegan, supported animal rights and environmental causes, and was a critic of factory farming.[26][27] He quit the Scooby-Doo show in 1995 when asked to voice Shaggy in a Burger King commercial, returning in 2002 after negotiating to have Shaggy become a vegetarian.[27]
      Kasem was active in politics for years, supporting Lebanese-American and Arab-American causes,[28] an interest which was triggered by the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon.[29] He wrote a brochure published by the Arab American Institute entitled "Arab-Americans: Making a Difference".[30] He turned down a position in season three of Transformers because of the show's plot portraying "evil Arabs".[31] He also called for a fairer depiction of heroes and villains, on behalf of all cultures, in Disney's 1994 sequel to Aladdin called The Return of Jafar.[13] In 1996, he was honored as "Man of the Year" by the American Druze Society.[31] Kasem campaigned against the Gulf War, advocating non-military means of pressuring Saddam Hussein into withdrawing from Kuwait,[29] was an advocate of Palestinian independence[32] and arranged conflict resolution workshops for Arab Americans and Jewish Americans.[33]
      A political liberal, he narrated a campaign ad for George McGovern's 1972 presidential campaign,[34] hosted fundraisers for Jesse Jackson's presidential campaigns in 1984 and 1988,[35] supported Ralph Nader for U.S. President in 2000, and supported progressive Democrat Dennis Kucinich in his 2004 and 2008 presidential campaigns.[36] Kasem supported a number of other progressive causes, including affordable housing and the rights of the homeless.[33]
      Kasem was married to Linda Myers from 1972 to 1979; they had three children:[37] Mike, Julie, and Kerri Kasem.[38]

      Kasem and his wife Jeanat the 1993 Emmy Awards
      Kasem was married to actress Jean Thompson from 1980 until his death. They had one child, Liberty Jean Kasem.[37]

      Illness and death

      In October 2013, Kerri Kasem said her father was suffering from Parkinson's disease, which a doctor had diagnosed in 2007;[39][40] a few months later, she said he was diagnosed with Lewy body dementia, which is often difficult to differentiate from Parkinson's.[41]Due to his condition, he was no longer able to speak.[42]
      As his health worsened in 2013, Jean Kasem prevented any contact with her husband, particularly from his children under his first marriage. On October 1, Kerri, Mike and Julie protested in front of the Kasem home, having not been allowed contact with their father for three months; some of Casey Kasem's long-time friends and colleagues, along with his brother Mouner, also joined the demonstration.[38][43] The eldest Kasem children sought conservatorship over their father's care, with Julie and her husband Dr. Jamil Aboulhosn filing the papers;[44] the court denied their petition in November.[45] The feuding between Jean Kasem and her stepchildren over visitation, her husband's care and his best interests continued for his remaining months, and often spilled into court.
      It got even more contentious when he was suddenly removed from a Santa Monica, California nursing home by his wife early on May 7, 2014.[46] On May 12, Kerri Kasem was granted temporary conservatorship over her father, despite her stepmother's objection.[47] The court also ordered an investigation into Casey Kasem's whereabouts, after his wife's attorney told the court Casey was "no longer in the United States".[42] He was found soon afterward in Washington state.[48] Jean Kasem was warned about the potentially fatal risks of moving her husband from the nursing home in Santa Monica.[46] Over the weeks that followed, Casey's health seriously deteriorated.
      On June 6, 2014, Kasem was reported to be in critical but stable condition at a hospital in Washington state, receiving antibiotics for bedsores and treatment for high blood pressure. It was revealed that he had been bedridden for some time.[49] A judge ordered separate visitation times due to antagonism between Jean Kasem and his children from his first wife.[50] 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 that 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."[40] 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.[51]
      On June 15, 2014, Kasem died at St. Anthony's Hospital in Gig Harbor, Washington at the age of 82.[10][52][53] He was survived by his wife, four children, and four grandchildren.[54] Casey's body was handed over to widow Jean, who would be making funeral arrangements.[55]

      Honors

      In 1981, Kasem was granted a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.[56] He was inducted into the National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame radio division in 1985,[57] and the National Radio Hall of Fame in 1992. Five years later, he received the Radio Hall of Fame's first Lifetime Achievement Award.[5] In 2003, Kasem was given the Radio Icon award at the Radio Music Awards.[56]

      Filmography

      YearTitleRoleNotes
      1966[58]The Girls From Thunder Strip[58]Feature film[58]
      1967[58]The Glory Stompers[6]MouthFeature film[58]
      1968Garrison's GorillasProvost MarshallLive-action
      1968–1969[17]The Batman/Superman Hour[17]Robin / Dick Grayson[17]Voice[17]
      1969[58]Scream Free![58]Feature film[58]
      1969[58]2000 Years Later[58]Feature film[58]
      1969Wild Wheels[6]KnifeFeature film
      1969[58]The Cycle Savages[6]Keeg's BrotherFeature film[58]
      1969–1971[59]Skyhawks[59]Steve Wilson[59]
      Joe Conway      		Voice[59]
      1969–1971[59]Hot Wheels[59]Tank Mallory
      Dexter Carter[59]      		Voice[59]
      1969–1971Cattanooga Cats[6]Groove[6] or Groovey,[59] the drummer (sources differ)Voice[6]
      1969–1971[17]Scooby-Doo, Where Are You![17]Shaggy Rogers[17]Voice[17]
      1970–1972[59]Josie and the Pussycats[6]Alexander Cabot III[6]Voice[6]
      1971[6]Here Comes Peter Cottontail[6]Peter Cottontail[6]Voice, stop-motion Easter special for Rankin-Bass[6]
      1971[58]The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant[58]KenLive-action[58]
      1972Doomsday MachineMission Control OfficerVoice
      1972Wait Till Your Father Gets HomeGeorgeVoice
      1972–1973The New Scooby-Doo MoviesShaggy Rogers
      Alexander Cabot III      		Voice
      1972–1974[59]Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space[59]Alexander Cabot IIIVoice[59]
      1973–1985[6]Super Friends in various titles[17]Robin / Dick Grayson[17]Voice[17]
      1974The Dean Martin Celebrity RoastAdolf HitlerLive-action
      The Roast of Don Rickles
      1974Hong Kong PhooeyCar Stealer
      Clown
      1974Hawaii Five-OSwift
      Freddie Dryden      		Live-action
      1974Emergency +4Additional voicesVoice
      1974IronsideLab Technician
      Jim Crutcher      		Live-action
      1976–1977Dynomutt, Dog WonderFishface
      Swamp Rat
      Shaggy Rogers      		Voice
      1976–1978The Scooby-Doo ShowShaggy RogersVoice
      1977Police StorySobheLive-action
      1977Quincy, M.E.Sy WallaceLive-action
      1977The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew MysteriesPaul HamiltonLive-action
      1977SwitchTony BrockLive-action
      1977–1978What's New Mr. Magoo?WaldoVoice
      1977–1980Laff-A-LympicsShaggy RogersRecurring, various episodes
      1978[58]Disco Fever[58]Brian ParkerLive-action[58]
      1978Charlie's AngelsTom RogersLive-action
      1978Jana of the JungleAdditional voices
      1978–1985Battle of the PlanetsMarkAmerican dubbed adaptation of anime series Science Ninja Team Gatchaman (in which the character was originally called "Ken the Eagle")
      1979–1980Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-DooShaggy RogersVoice
      1979Scooby Goes HollywoodShaggy RogersFeature film
      1980[17]The Return of the King[17]Merry, a hobbit[17]Voice, feature film[17]
      1980–1982The Richie Rich-Scooby Doo ShowShaggy RogersVoice
      1982–1983The Scooby & Scrappy-Doo/Puppy HourShaggy RogersVoice
      1983–1984The All-New Scooby and Scrappy DooShaggy RogersVoice
      1984–1985The New Scooby-Doo MysteriesShaggy RogersVoice
      1984–1987[17]The Transformers[17]Cliffjumper, Bluestreak,[17]Teletraan IVoice[17]
      1984[6]Ghostbusters[6]Himself[6]Cameo in the live-action feature film comedy[6]
      1985The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-DooShaggy RogersVoice
      1986[17]The Transformers: The Movie[17]Cliffjumper[17]Voice, feature film[17]
      1987Scooby-Doo Meets the Boo BrothersShaggy RogersFeature film
      1988Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul SchoolShaggy RogersFeature film
      1988–1991A Pup Named Scooby-DooShaggy Rogers
      Shaggy's Father      		Voice
      1988Scooby-Doo! and the Reluctant WerewolfShaggy RogersFeature film
      1991Tiny Toons AdventuresFlakey FlakemsVoice
      19932 Stupid DogsBill BarkerVoice
      1994Captain Planet and the PlaneteersLexo StarbuckVoice
      1988Scooby-Doo! in Arabian NightsShaggy RogersFeature film
      1996Homeboys in Outer SpaceSpacy KasemLive-action
      1997Johnny BravoShaggy RogersVoice
      2000Histeria!Calgary KasemVoice
      2002–2006What's New, Scooby-Doo?Shaggy Rogers
      2003Scooby-Doo! and the Legend of the VampireShaggy RogersFeature film
      2003Scooby-Doo! and the Monster of MexicoShaggy RogersFeature film
      2003Blue's CluesRadioVoice
      2004Scooby-Doo! and the Loch Ness MonsterShaggy RogersFeature film
      2005Aloha, Scooby-Doo!Shaggy RogersFeature film
      2005Scooby-Doo! in Where's My Mummy?Shaggy RogersFeature film
      2006Scooby-Doo! Pirates Ahoy!Shaggy RogersFeature film
      2006–2008Shaggy & Scooby-Doo Get a Clue!Uncle AlbertVoice
      2007Chill Out, Scooby-Doo!Shaggy RogersFeature film
      2008Scooby-Doo! and the Goblin KingShaggy RogersFeature film
      2009Scooby-Doo! and the Samurai SwordShaggy RogersFeature film
      2010–2011,
      2013[6]      		Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated[17]Colton Rogers[17]Voice[17]

      *****


      Casey Kasem (b. April 27, 1932, Detroit, Mich.— d. June 15, 2014, Gig Harbor, Wash.), was born Kemal Amin Kasem. Kasem was born in Detroit, Michigan, on April 27, 1932, to Lebanese Druze immigrant parents. They settled in Michigan, where they worked as grocers.

      Kasem became an American disc jockey who filled the airways for 34 years (1970–2004) with his weekly nationally syndicated Top 40 radio shows, including American Top 40, which he created and hosted with a hallmark easygoing style. During the program’s four-hour format, Kasem provided listeners not only with an upbeat analysis of the songs that had made the list (gleaned from Billboard magazine’s most popular singles of the previous week) but also with personal tidbits about the artists behind the music. Kasem’s courtly voice and popular catchphrases, including his signature sign-off, “Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars,” made him one of the country’s most recognizable radio personalities. Kasem also fronted American Top 20 and American Top 10.  He retired as host from those radio shows in 2009. In addition to his radio work, Kasem appeared in a few films, including The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant(1971) and Ghostbusters (1984, as himself), and provided the voice of Shaggy on the cartoon series Scooby-Doo and for Robin “the Boy Wonder” on the animated The Batman/Superman Hour (1968–69). He was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 1992.
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