Casey and Jean Kasem
Jean was known to adopt an eccentric fashion sense that earned her repeat mentions on various worst-dressed lists.
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A Ubiquitous Voice
Not that long ago, Casey Kasem's voice was ubiquitous. According to American Top 40: The Countdown of the Century, Rob Durkee's definitive history of the show, Kasem's syndicated franchise "was easily the most listened-to radio program in history" at its zenith during the early 1980s.
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Protest
Friends and family of Kasem at a protest Oct. 1 in Beverly Hills.
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Kasem in 1957
He was born Kemal Amen Kasem in Detroit in 1932, the first son of Druze parents from the mountainsides of the Chouf in Lebanon. They ran a grocery store on the corner of Cass and Alexandrine and refused to let their sons learn Arabic, insisting they assimilate. Obsessed with baseball and radio, Kasem volunteered to read the sports results over the PA at Northwestern High School. While attending college at Wayne State University, he got his first taste of stardom and fat paychecks, landing a series of plum juvenile roles on immensely popular Detroit-based radio shows such as The Lone Ranger and Challenge of the Yukon.
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‘The Mystery of the Hollywood Phantom’
Kasem had a role in a 1977 two-part episode story of the Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries, "The Mystery of the Hollywood Phantom."
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Radio Music Awards
The legend was honored at the 2003 Radio Music Awards.
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Ryan Seacrest and Casey Kasem
Kasem's official successor, Ryan Seacrest, took over American Top 40 in 2004. The show reaches 500 stations and 5 million listeners.