Casey Kasem, the US radio personality with the distinctive voice who counted down the top pop music hits on a popular weekly show and also provided the voice of hippie sleuth Shaggy on the Scooby Doo cartoons, died on Sunday. He was 82.
"Early this Father's Day morning, our dad Casey Kasem passed away surrounded by family and friends," his daughter, Kerri Kasem, said in a statement posted online.
"Even though we know he is in a better place and no longer suffering, we are heartbroken."
Last Sunday, it was announced that Kasem was in critical condition at a Washington state hospital. He was being treated for an infected bedsore, a St Anthony Hospital in Gig Harbor spokesman said.
Kasem suffered from Lewy body disease, a form of dementia with symptoms similar to Parkinson's disease and hallucinations.
His medical care and visitor access had been at the centre of a legal tussle between the children from his first marriage – Kerri, Julie and Mike – and his second wife, Jean Kasem, with whom he had one child, Liberty.
Last week a Los Angeles judge reversed his own earlier decision and gave Kerri Kasem the authority to have doctors end his infusions of water, food and medicine. The decision came after Kasem’s doctor concluded that continuing to support him would “at best prolong the dying process for him and will certainly add suffering to an already terribly uncomfortable dying process", according to Kerri Kasem's lawyer, Troy Martin.
The Detroit native was born Kemal Amin Kasem, the son of a Lebanese immigrant father and a Lebanese-American mother. His parents divorced when he was young, and his father died in 1955 after a car crash on the way to see him act in a play.
His career in radio started at Wayne State University and continued during a stint in the army working for the Armed Forces Radio Network in Korea. His big break came in 1963 as co-host on KTLA’s after-school dance show Shebang with Dick Clark, another radio and TV icon.
Six years later he started American Top 40, which he hosted until 2004 before handing over to Ryan Seacrest.
“Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars,” Seacrest wrote on Twitter on Sunday, using Kasem's signature closing advice.
Seacrest concluded: “We’ll miss you, Casey.”
"I just didn't want to say goodbye. Every station I was at, I never said goodbye," Kasem once explained to the New York Times. "I don't know why."
Kasem continued to host spinoff shows American Top 20 and American Top 10 until he retired, in 2009.
His distinctive voice became synonymous with dozens of iconic American brands, including Dairy Queen, Ford, Heinz ketchup and the California Raisin Advisory Board. As well as Shaggy, Kasim was the voice of Robin in the Batman cartoon.
A vegan, Kasem also advocated for animal rights. "Some of the things that I do, I think are very important and much more important than the radio show or the television show that I do or anything else that I do,” he once said.
“I think right at the top of the list is the basic thing. And of course the basic thing is to hopefully stop people from killing anything. And to create a non-violent diet for themselves, because a non-violent world has roots in a non-violent diet."
Kasem did not say goodbye when he signed off from his radio career in 2009, closing instead with: “I’d like to share with you something I've learned over the years.
“Success doesn't happen in a vacuum. You’re only as good as the people you work with and the people you work for. I've been lucky. I've worked for and with the very best."
